A New Player on the Board
by FlynnLivesndIwilbuildtheGrid
Summary: What would happen if someone as old as the universe itself, that had been lost in his own mind for eons. Found a reason to come and see this beautiful world. And his reason is Steven Quartz Universe. Imagine the amount of insanity that can occur when super powered beings with variable personalities, collides with the insanity of the Crystal Gems! Rated T just to be safe...
1. The Fall

Steven woke gasping for breath, looking around panicked, his mind came back to reality as he took in the scene of the quiet beach house around him. Panicking again when he saw Pearl watching him sleep, again.

"Pearl, I thought I told you to not to watch me sleep anymore." Steven said in mild annoyance.

Pearl looked at him with concern.

"Well, I did stop for a while, then you kept waking up in the middle of the night gasping for air, I just wanted to make sure it wasn't Lion doing something to you while you slept."

"No it's not Lion, I keep having this dream and I can never seem to remember it." Steven said putting two of his fingers to his temples to massage them. He tried to remember what it had been, but the memory falls through his hands like sand.

The look of concern on Pearl's face deepened.

"We should go get Garnet, she'll propably be able to help use see what's going on inside your dreams."

Pearl rose and went to the Temple door.

"I'll be back in a minute Steven, try and get some sleep. We'll figure this out soon enough."

Pearl opened the Temple door and walked inside, the door closed behind her and then there was silence. Steven was unsure if it was wise to go back to sleep, but he knew that his body needed to sleep to function. His body seemed to pull his mind back into a sleeping state the moment his head touched the pillow.

Inside of Steven's dream, he suddenly realized he was falling through the air.

Steven was slow to reailze what was happening around him. But as he got hold of his senses, he realized that the ground wasn't getting any closer. Much time passed with him just falling throught the midnight sky, he waited to hit a ground that never seemed to grow closer. A minute passed, then an hour, so much time passed that, in the 'completely logical' setting of a dream, Steven grew a full beard. The sensation of waiting for something seemed all encompassing to Steven. The world around him almost seemed to say it was waiting for something to happen.

Then Steven heard someone call his name from what seemed miles above him. Steven looked up to see Garnet falling towards him. Steven moved out of the way, sure that Garnet would smash into him if he didn't. The odd thing was that as Garnet got closer to Steven she started falling slower, so slow in fact, that when she reached Steven she was falling at the same speed as him.

"Steven, can you hear me?" Garnet said, it was honestly very strange indeed. Steven could hear her easily over the wind in his ears.

Steven nodded and asked, "How are you here?"

Garnet removed glasses and pointed to her third eye which was wide open staring off to the right.

"Future sight isn't my only power." Garnet responded then replaced the glasses on her face. "We need to find whoever's making this place!"

Steven looked at her confused.

"Isn't this my dream?"

Garnet shook her head. "This is a projection, someone else's mind is making this."

Garnet scooped Steven up in one arm and angled herself so that she and Steven fell in the direction her third eye pointed instead of straight down. The environment didn't seem to like that, it almost seemed to fight their advance. But, just as a stream wears away stone, slowly they did make progress.

After a time of moving in the same direction, they spotted a flat-topped mountain in the distance. It grew closer until they saw a blue mass on top of the mountain. Both the mass and the mountain grew larger as they neared.

When they finally landed on the mountain, they saw that the blue mass they had seen from far off was actually a massive dome that glowed an bright ethereal blue right at its center. In the center was a man floating on his back, he seemed to look around the age of twenty five. He looked almost as if he were dressed in clothes made of static. There was nothing on his feet.

The man seemed completely unaware of the two of them.

"We've found who's making this place, let's go and see why." Garnet said as she walked up to the dome with Steven safely behind her.

Steven reached for his chin to stroke his beard only to find that at the lightest tug the beard came off, shrugging it off he watched Garnet walk up to the dome.

Garnet was unsure of how to proceed, the person that built the dream seemed to have encased themself in some form of protective dome. With great caution, Garnet placed a hand on it. In the same instant a voice began to speak. Its voice emmenated from everywhere but the figure within the dome did not move.

"Yes?" The voice sounded weary, but at the same time it seemed to sound kind and soft.

"Who are you?"

"Last." The voice responsed with a slow deliberate tone.

"Last of what?"

"..." There was momentary silence. "Not last."

"What do you mean by that, 'Not Last'?"

"I am not the last of anything, it is the name I chose to have."

Garnet was already tired of this conversation, she wanted answers.

"Alright then, why have you tethered yourself to Steven's mind?"

"He is strong, stronger than all else, but that is not the reason. The reason is, his love, it is in his nature to love everything around him. I haven't felt anything but empty in a very long time. I doubted I could feel anymore. Then I felt him, his love for the world he lives on and those that inhabit it, it gave me a reason to pull myself from the dark."

Garnet was fairly surprised by his answer, but the last part bothered her. "What dark?"

The dome 'laughed' softly at the question and began to sing a simple melody in response.

"All I need is a little love in my life, all I need is a little love in the dark, something that might just kick start, me and my broken heart."

The man under the dome turned from laying on his back to straight up. He descended to the ground below him and walked to the edge of the dome. The dome seemed to compact and fall in on itself towards Last. Garnet stepped back and so did Steven, right to the egde of the mountain plateau.

The still brightly shining dome pressed itself on to Last's body. The dome stopped being solid and pulled itself inside of his body. For a moment however, it formed an exact outline of how Last's body looked, then sank beneath his skin and faded out of sight. The world beneath them began to pulse, an ancient heart began to beat once more. Last opened his eyes to reveal blue eyes that almost seemed to have fire coming from around the edges. He began a slow walk towards Garnet and Steven. Garnet summoned her gautlets.

"Thank you." Last stopped a few feet in front of the duo.

"I would have never had the will to leave my own mind if not for you Steven." Last gave Steven a small smile then looked to Garnet.

"And to answer your question..." Last said to Garnet, "the dark that is inside of me."

Quicker than was perceptable, Last raised a hand and Garnet's three eyes closed. Before Garnet knew what had happened, she was gone. To say Steven was shocked would be an understatment.

"What did you do to her?" Steven exclaimed.

"I sent her back to the waking world. Now, as to why your still here with me. It's because I wanted to talk to you privately." Last sat on the fround in front of Steven.

"What's to stop her from coming back here to get me?" Steven asked nervously.

"Time, in here, time runs at a rate of one hour here equals one minute in the real world. Even if she tried, she could not come here again because I don't want her back. Now, back to why your still here."

Last looked to the horizon, far away from both him and Steven, there was a small speck of blue on the horizon.

Looking back down at Steven, Last continued. "I'll make this relatively brief, I'm nearly there."

"Nearly where?"

"To you, in reality my body has been drifting for a very long time, but it had no place to go. Now it does, to you. That's what the fall whenever you enter this dream is about, it's me, waiting for a reason to do anything. You see Steven, you are the bi-product of a love that shouldn't have worked, you are half-human and half-gem. Someone like you shouldn't be able to live but it seems nature has a few rules in need of revision because here you are, impossible but true."

Last's face failed to hide the look of amazement he had.

"You are a being that can do anything with sufficient time and training. You aren't bound to a three-dimensional world. Your emotions almost come off as a wavelength, a signal for all the world to see. Me on the other hand, I felt it from the darkest part in my mind, your emotions were strong enough to wake me from my waiting. To pull me away from a void. For that I must thank you with both my hearts."

Last pulled down the collar of his shirt to show a heart cut blood diamond embedded in his chest. "The heart that runs my body..." And then the blue of the dome once again shown from under his skin. "And the soul that is the center of my being." Last raised a finger to his lips in a 'keep it a secret' gesture and then tapped the same finger to his gem turning it clear.

Steven's expression changed quite a few times through the course of what he heard. First fear, then that fear softened as the explanation went further. Eventually his face settled into complete neutrallity.

"How long until your body gets to me?"

Last pondered for a moment as he estimated the time remaining.

"Hmm, I will be there at sunrise, the way we can judge time in here relative to the real world, is by looking up at the sky." Last pointed up at an immense starry night sky with the moon hanging overhead.

"When that moon makes it to the horizon, it will be dawn where you are and this place will cease, after an endless eternity. It'll all come crashing down, it will become whatever my mind makes it into, for the moment it's mostly set, unchanging. But what's a dream if you can't change it, this place is based off my perception of the world. Untouchable, no matter how much I wanted to. Now I can finally reach out and feel something. I don't know how to describe how I look at your world, I just want to touch it, to feel something besides the nothingness I feel from this waiting."

"Well, it is a nice place to spend awhile if you ask me." Steven said looking around at the dream, and up at the sky. "What do we do now?"

A chess board rose from the ground along with two chairs. "Care for a game?"

"I don't even know how to play?" Steven said climbing into one of the chairs.

The chairs and the board moved themselves away from the edge of the mountain. "That's alright, I can teach you. We certainly have the time to do it, I can even teach you a few tricks and strategies that most people don't know."

Many hours passed and many hundreds of rounds of chess were played as the moon drew closser to the horizon.

"Checkmate" Steven said with a smug smile, while Last had a very shocked expression over the loss.

"Well, it looks like i've taught you all I can about chess." Last said looking at the moon. "And it looks like we are almost out of time." Last turned back to Steven with a serious look on his face. "Steven, when I do make it to Earth, I want you to promise me that you'll be the one that I see first when I get there." Steven noddedin agreement.

"Well then, it looks like it's time to wake up..." Last trailed off as it happened.

The moon seemed to actually hit the horizon and a massive burst of white light came from it, the light raced towards them, wiping the land clean of everything.

"Hey Steven." Last called to him over the roar of the impact as the light approached.

"Yeah?" Steven shouted back.

"Catch you on the flid-side." Last shouted with a smile, just then the light reached them and the world went blank.

Steven gasped for air opening his eyes to see, not an explosion, but to see his room with Garnet siting right next to him asleep in her own dreams. Turning his head somewhat Steven saw the first glimmer of sunlight coming over the horizon.

'It's dawn.' Last's voice sounded faintly at the back of Steven's mind. 'It's time to begin.'


	2. The Arrival

"Good morning Steven, sleep well?" Garnet said.

Steven looked at her and was about to question her on why she would ask but Last's voice sounded once more in Steven's head.

'I altered her memory, as far as she recalls she has been watching over you all night. Answer as if nothing happened while you slept.'

Steven continued as if nothing had happened, "Fine, better than I have in a few days."

Garnet cracks a small smile, "That's good maybe whatever was keeping you up is over no..."

Garnet was interupted by an earth shattering sonic boom from outside. Garnet and Steven rushed out side to see what was happening followed quickly by Pearl and Amethyst.

"Garnet what happened?" Pearl said in a panic.

"Ya Garnet, that boom shook the Temple." Amethyst adds on.

Garnet simply pointed skyward, as everyone followed the aim of her finger, they saw a flaming object falling through the sky at a phenomenal rate.

'Be careful about this Steven, if they see me as a threat they will try to attack. It wouldn't go well for any of us. Get your shield ready, I'll use the ocean and soften the landing.'

The object changed directions, instead of flying at a slanted angle towards the beach. It had adjusted itself so that it was falling straight down to the ocean below.

"It changed direction?" Pearl said in surprise.

The object crashed into the water and a massive wave was brought up by it. But something odd thing happened, the wave froze in place then retreated to its center. The object rose from the water and rocketed towards the beach. As it grew closer, the actual shape became clear. It was a human, or at least something with human form.

Steven was already running to where he had estimated Last was going to land, not that the gems noticed, seeing as they had their eyes trained on the humanoid object barreling towards them.

Last crashed hard and formed a small glassy crater in the sand, his body rose from the ground and simply floated a few inches above it.

Steven was there in a matter of moments, Last looked exactly as he had in the dream. His eyes were closed, but his presence in Steven's mind hadn't faded.

'Steven quickly, I need something to keep me here. Grab onto me, I need an anchor to the material world.'

"Steven! What are you doing so close, it could be dangerous." Steven looked up at Pearl and the other gems. Standing between them and Last he froze, unsure of what to do.

'Steven' Steven turned to look at Last and time came to a halt. The gems were frozen in place, Sadie had stopped mid-step in her off loading of donuts for the morning. The universe ground to a halt around them.

'This is your choice, leave me, or help me. Either way, I know you made the best possible choice you could.' Last's eyes opened slightly as his arm reached out towards Steven in slow motion. Steven made his decision and reached out his hand for Last.

Time gradually resumed as the three crystal gems leapt at Steven to try and stop him. Steven grasped Last's hand at the same moment that the gems grabbed hold of him. Last's eyes burst open, to reveal a blinding white light that poured from them.

It wasn't noticed, for an instant later, a massive burst of energy erupted from Last. The blast was a soft shade of blue that didn't seem to harm anything at all. It expanded quickly, picking up speed with each and every moment, covering first the city then the continent, and lastly the planet. The light faded in mere moments.

The scene was almost exactly the same as it had been before, except that Last was standing upright and a pair of snow white wings now adorned his back or at least the bleeding remnent of such wings.

"Material anchor established, physical form: unstainable, all senses currently disconnected, magical capabilities of planet enabled, reality backup set, mental barriers: holding." Last talked almost robotically for the duration of it before lifting from the ground yet again.

His eyes shifted from blinding white to flaming blue as Last's body rose higher and began to unravel itself. Every segment breaking away and turning to dust. Left behind was a heart-shaped clear diamond lined all around its middle segment was what appeared to be a band of gold.

'Now, we can begin.'


	3. Reconstruction

"So tell me again why we can't just bubble it?" Amethyst said in mild annoyance.

"Because it doesn't work, every time we try, the bubble instantly breaks." Garnet said in the same manner as Amethyst.

"Well I understand that," Pearl said annoyed, "but did you really have to bring the gem into the house?" Pearl said pointing to Last's gem which laid in the same basket that her gem had when she took a sword through the chest.

"Yep, because he asked to be brought inside." Steven said in his normal happy voice swinging his legs off the edge of the couch next to Amethyst.

"And how did he do that, he doesn't have a body to allow for communication." Pearl asked Steven.

'Because I don't need a body, you however, seem to have a large mouth and an ego to match it.' Last's voice sounded from all around them.

There was a long silence after that as Pearl froze in surprise, then stormed away from Last. She opened the Temple door and retreated into her room before closing the door behind her and giving Last's gem a look of disdain.

'Well, now that 'the girl with a really big ego' is gone, what would you people like to know? Seeing as I don't have a body for the moment, I can't really do much else but strike up a conversation.'

Garnet was the first to speak, "Why did you come to Earth?"

'Simple enough, I came here to enjoy this place, I want to experience all this world can offer me.'

Next up was Steven, "How come your body went poof?"

'Because that body was more or less a residual image, an echo, of who I was. No echo lasts forever, only for a moment.'

The questions continued to flow for over an hour. Garnet was satisfied that Last intended no harm, Amethyst began to wonder how well he'd handle partying with her, and lastly, Steven felt assured he had made the right choice by helping Last.

"Just one last question." Garnet said. 'And what is that?' Last asked.

"What was is that you said about magic capabilities being enabled for Earth?"

'This planet was devoid of almost every form of magic, I rectified that. Now the people of this world will be more capable of doing things without machines or outside help, it will however present a new problem that some will abuse their power, but I am certain that they will be few and far between.'

Last finished his sentence and his gem began to float upwards hurling itself out the open window towards the ocean. All of the gems that were present rushed outside in time to see what appeared to be Last's gem at the center of an energy bubble over the water. The bubble only expanded a few feet away from Last's gem. The white of the energy turned to a deep blue as it shifted into something that was transparent like glass.

The transparent material slowly seemed to become other things. Bit-by-bit pieces of a human body appeared. When the main body was complete, a pair of intact, deep grey wings grew from Last's back.

"Wow, those are so cool!" Steven exclaimed at seeing that Last now had a pair of wings on his back.

"Like them? I thought I might keep them as a reminder of the past."

"Your arms." Garnet said hesitently as she looked at the numerous symbols carved into Last's arms. "What are those?"

"What do you mean Garnet?" Steven asked, as Last didn't have his sleeves up.

There was a look of mild surprise on Last's face.

"You have better sight then I expected." Last said pulling up his sleeves one at a time.

As each sleeve rolled up, the disturbing image of odd symbols burned into skin began to embed itself in the minds of Steven, Amethyst, and to a lesser extent, Garnet.

"If you must know, I'm forced to have these for a time while I acclimate to this dimension. Even with all of these runes from across eternity, I still find it difficult. I have to remember not to push myslef too far or I'll float off this plane of existence. I can't go home, but it's so hard to stay here right now."

Last pulled back down his sleeves, "So long as we're answering question. Garnet, if your senses are that sharp, can you see the 4th Wall?"

Last directed his attention to all who read these words.

"Don't ask what it is, you'll figure it out."

Garnet was a little disturbed by the last part but answered. "No. What's the 4th Wall?"

"Ohh, come now, you must know you're a character on a page right?" Last pushed the issue, growing enraged with each word uttered.

"Story?" At this point, Garnet grew all the more confused.

"You, Steven, hell, this whole planet! It's all apart of one person's story, it's not even a good one! It's barely been seen, and the worst part is that I have to be aware of it, my words carry no sound! I know I'm a part of a story..."

Last paused in his rant as he realized what was about to occur.

"You're about to do something aren't you, ?"

How'd you guess?

A white oblivion engulfs Last and standing in front of him is me.

That was very bad on your part Last. You can't just tell the characters it's all a story, it defeats the point of it all.

"I don't care! Go back to your room and type up a love life or some thing."

Last turned his back.

I'll ignore that comment and fix your mistake, and no, I won't erase it altogether. I'll just turn back time about twenty seconds or so. You do realize that they can't know everything right? At least not yet.

"Ya, I know. We've been through this before, as I do recall I have 13 brothers and si.."

You better shut your mouth right there, I haven't brought them in yet. They don't need to know about the higher powers in this story yet.

"The what?" Last asked with a grin.

A long moment of silence followed by the sound of a facepalm.

I'm an idiot... I don't suppose you'll let me erase that will you?

"Nope, it's the best info leak i've gotten out of you in 2000 years."

You can't let Sparta go can you?

"Never have, never will." Last smiled a victorius smile.

I have to end this now or I might as well kiss all my surprises in this story goodbye.

A large clock face appeared off and away from Last, facing him.

Care to turn back the clock? No hands there means I'm not turning it back.

Last was picking something from his nails, "Well todays friday so, sure why not?"

Last grasped one of the clock's hands and pulled it back, a moment passed, or rather, turned back. Time itself turned back.

Yes, I know, I have created a sentient character that knows we exist, this is bad. I can't do anything to him, his power matches mine in some ways. Till next time, keep reading.


	4. They've Found Him

Time resumes at a point about 15 seconds before Last had his meltdown.

"So, are we done here?" Last asked. Garnet nodded.

"Yes, we're done."

Last's wings folded themselves in close to his back.

"Good, now then let's..." Last didn't get to finish that sentence as he fell to his knees in what seemed like pain. Steven rushed to him.

"I thought I could go unsensed just a little longer, I thought they might not notice me coming in."

"Who noticed you?" Garnet said in an extremely serious tone.

Last's image seemed to flicker for half a second, "They are the others like me, they all fell before me, I was the last to fall. (There's the answer to the question of why his name is Last.) I just want to feel, feel something besides the Void that I spent eternity in. I thought I could hide my presense from their senses, but it feels like they didn't lose their powers either. They're coming, get me inside. This will not end well."

Garnet immediately pulled Last onto her back and rushed to the house. As they rushed to the house the sky darkened quickly and grew stormy.

"Steven." Last said in a quiet voice. He weakly raised a hand. "Lend me some of your strength."

Steven grasped Last's hand as his eyes flickered to white for a moment as Steven began to feel weak. Last's grip strengthened as he pulled Steven up into Garnet's arms.

"Thank you, now I can at least hide you from them."

Last leapt from Garnet's arms and bolted up into the beach house beconing the others in after him. He shut the door and began to press his hands to the door frame. As he pulled them from the door frame, a large amount of odd symbols burned themselves into it. He repeated the process of the windows as well.

"Garnet." Last said as he opened the door. "These wards should at the very least block them from seeing all of you, but I ask that you take care of Steven, he's more important than can be imagined." With that Last walked out the door and shut it behind him.

Last looked up at the sky and watched as a faint shimmer circled the beach and a lightining bolt hit the beach.

"You've always had to be dramatic when it came to your entrances haven't you, Gabriel?"

Out of the small cloud of sand that the bolt kicked up the figure of something that appeared human came into view.

"Didn't think you paid enough attention to know that I have a new name."

"I always watch, now what are you doing here?"

"Ooo come on lossen up, I can't visit the last one of us to fall to the mortal plane?"

"Not where we are concerned, it's never just a visit."

Gabriel's expression dropped from that of happiness to completely serious.

"Where's your anchor? Must be incredibly strong to keep you grounded here, that or they weigh as much as this planet."

"Not quite enough actually." Last said pulling up a sleeve to reveal the runes on his arms.

"Well, falling AND tattoos. In the same day no less, maybe you really have pulled that stick out of your ass."

"(growls slightly) Not funny, and why did you think it was necessary to put that much energy into braking my masking wards?"

"Well, for starters, if I didn't pull almost all your energy out from under you, you would have shoot off-world before I came within a light-year of this place."

"Clever, that's so unlike you, you've been learning since you've been here."

Gabriel smilled a very sly smile, "Speaking of learning, I learned a trick around your little ward that is supposed to keep me from knowing where your anchor is. All I had to do was stretch my senses all over this little town until I found a spot where I picked up nothing, and the only place around here where I sense nothing (laughs a little under his breath) is in the house behind you."

Last was shocked, he didn't even hide it.

"Well, before I start trying to throw you off this plane of existence, give me ONE reason why I should trust you enough to not do so."

Gabriel's smile faded abruptly. "I'm desperate, my anchor is going to die soon and I need a new one, and I don't want one that will be gone in a couple of decades. I've been looking for an anchor that could last as long as us, then I felt you on my radar for the smallest fraction of a second, I thought I had imagined it, but I held out hope that it was you.

You are one of the strongest of us, so you would need someone that could ride the whirlwind. So I followed that wisp of air here, hoping to find someone like that, but all there is on this hunk of rock are humans." Takes a deep breath. "And the sweet smell of magic, that's new. But I'll, ask once, only once. Before we both do something we'll regret. What, on this ROCK, did you anchor yourself to."

Last sighed slowly and walked slowly to the door.

"My anchor is an impossible child." Last opened the door watching Steven tumble out onto the porch, since he had been listening from the other side.

Shock filled Gabriels face. "Noo, you found an impossible child, a child born against all the laws of creation? Wait, noo, there's something else, he's half gem? He smells like stone and blood. You realize that.."

"Yes, I do and I didn't find him. He found me, in the cold and the dark."

Last neiled down to Steven. "Where did the others go?"

"They went to find Pearl in the Temple."

"What! Little Miss Ego is in there too? What else do you have in that house? A philophers sto..."

Last turned his head back towards Gabriel with a warning glare as he slowly walked towards the two of them.

"She used the other method to fall, she isn't awake to who she was before, but I'm sure two of us here will cause something to surface in her mind."

Gabriel was almost all the way up the stairs but his path was blocked by Last.

"Swear, in the name of the 14 original entities, that your intentions are pure, and that you will, to the best of your ability, behave."

Gabriel swore to the conditions that Last had outlined and Last stood aside but grabbed Gabriel's shoulder before he walked all the way past.

"It is still Steven's choice, you don't get to scare a 'yes' out of him."

Gabriel looked at Steven. "Have you been listening from the start?" Steven nodded.

"Then this will be simple enough, will you allow me to anchor myself onto you?"

Steven pondered for a minute, weighing the options he had. His immediate thought was to say no, but then again Gabriel had not done anything wrong since he appeared, and saying no would probably result in a large fight between Last and Gabriel and quite possibly the destruction of the city.

Steven raised up a hand towards Gabriel. Gabriel smiled and slowly raised his own hand, savoring the moment. When their hands connected nothing happened for a moment, then the quiet sound of chains breaking somewhere far away and then a jolt of energy passed between Gabriel and Steven.

"I'm curious," Steven said to the both of them, "why a hand-shake?"

They both looked at each other for a moment and answered in unison. "Universal sign of agreement."

"So," Last said to Gabriel, "Do you think anyone else detected me?"

"You weren't exactly sile.." Gabriel was cut short by Pearl coming out of nowhere.

"Steven!" Pearl screamed as she pulled two spears and drove one into Last's chest and the other into Gabriel's.

Gabriel grunted slightly and Last looked down at the spear.

"That freaking hurt!" They both exclaimed in some very rightous anger.

Last pulled the spear from his chest and broke it over his knee. There was a small trickle of blood for a moment before the wound sealed with a few arcs of red energy, but there it was, hot red blood.

The same thing happened to Gabriel after he had pulled the spear, he bleed for a moment and the wound sealed but with no red sparks.

Gabriel took a step towards Pearl with a dark look in his eyes but was stopped by Last.

"Easy, we don't need her trying to kill us again later, let it go."

Gabriel gave a long arctic cold stare at Pearl, the kind that makes people wet themselves out of fear.

"Fine."

Last calmed slightly and looked for Steven. He was hiding behind the couch.

"Steven, are you ok, you look scared as Hell, trust me when I say that, I've been there."

Steven turned to Last and hugged him crying slightly. "Your not dead!"

Last laughed as if it was hillarious. "It's gonna take a lot more than a spear through the chest to take me out, a lot more."

Last pulled Steven up and over the couch and sat him down.

"That's enough excitement for one day, end of chapter."


	5. The Magic's Source

"So are we good, no more trying to kill us?" Gabriel asked Pearl.

Pearl nodded and sipped a bit of tea she had made herself. "It's not my fault, I was protecting Steven, I didn't know if you were a threat, from how Last talked you seemed like you were going to trash the planet."

"I could if you actually want me to." Gabriel said with a grin.

Pearl's eyes widened immensly and said a hasty, "No no, that won't be neccesary."

Connie walked in from outside and called out, "Hey, Steve..."

Connie stopped abruptly, stumpled to her knees and clutched her head weakly. Steven ran quickly up to her to help her over to the couch.

"Are you ok Connie?" Steven asked worriedly.

Connie nodded, "I'm fine, it's just when I walked through the door, it felt like something just rammed into my mind."

"That would be us." Both Last and Gabriel said in unison.

Connie looked over at the two of them with a raised eyebrow and a look of confusion.

"We automatically look into the mind's of anyone that comes within a certain distance of us, but you puzzles that out when it happened twice. Now your looking at us because you feel something, something you can't quite explain, something that called you to come here."

Everyone looked at Last as if he had grown a second head, even Gabriel. Last ignored the looks and continued, all the while looking at Connie, and the world around them didn't seem to exist.

"Would you like to see what it is that brought you here?"

In the silence, Connie nodded slowly.

"Great, just look away for a second or you'll go blind." The noise of the world came flooding back in.

Last raised his hands and formed a large sphere of energy in his hands, there was a light brighter than a blue giant, but if anyone had been capable of seeing past the light they would have seen two dark outlines appear inside the sphere and gradually they became more solid. When it was done the light vanished and the sphere did as well, allowing a pitch black egg as well as a water blue egg to fall into Last's hands.

"You may look now."

Connie turned to see it, "Are those eggs?"

"Yes they are, the last dragon eggs at that." Last spoke quietly, almost as if he was trying not to wake the eggs, or maybe comforting small children?

"That preposterous! There is no such species."

"Not anymore there isn't, there was once a race of dragon, that lived on a planet much like this, they began to die for some reason that I could never figure out, but the last dragons to die were two mothers clutching their eggs. They roared at the sky begging someone to save their children, roaring till their last breath, I tried not to listen, but it drove me mad to hear the sound of such heartbreak. So I granted their wish and pulled the eggs from the mortal plain. I promised them that I would see to it that their children could fly under an open sky one day, and in their last moments I saw relief and hope come over them.

I will never understand how the dragons all came to die, they were the strongest of creatures, especially in magic. It runs hotter than Hell in their veins, and just as thick."

Pearl listened to the story but said nothing, if even on drop of the story was true then she imagined herself in the dragon's places with Steven as one of the eggs.

"Last," Gabriel said with concern, "you know that they are supposed to be dead species right?"

"The species is not dead if there is even a piece of them left, besides, we of all people should understand that no rule is absolute." said Last

Last raised the egg out to Connie, "Would you like to hold one, I have a feeling this one likes you."

Connie walked slowly towards Last and pulled the midnight black egg from his hands. A new sensation passed through Connie's mind, much like the mental probe that Last and Gabriel had done, but this one was weak and entirely passive.

"It seems to like you." Gabriel said with a great deal of certainty.

"How so, it's not doing anything." Connie said out of curiousity.

"It's for that reason that we do know, if it didn't like you there would be a good possibility that it would be mentally attacking everyone here, but it seems that Hope here has taken to you, maybe even imprinted."

Connie looked at the egg and just stared for a long time, the she smiled and hugged the egg.

Now it was Last's turn to smile, "Well it seems to me that you've accepted the role of being a mother to one of the last dragons in existence."

"What!"

Everyone turned to see Ronaldo standing at the front door.

Ronaldo came inside and ran up to Last looking at the egg in his hands and tried to grab it. Last raised the egg above his head, above Ronaldo's reach. At the same time the egg in Connie's hands lifted from her grasp to the same height as the other.

"Ohh, come on, I just want to examine it." Ronaldo said in a somewhat pleading tone.

"The last time you got a magical item you tried to dissect it, that is not something that I'm going to let happen to these eggs."

"Do you see these reading?" Ronaldo exclaimed gesturing to a small device he held in his hand that had pegged itself on the right side.

"These eggs are emitting some form of radiant energy that is affecting everyone on the planet."

"You can't be serious." Connie said looking up at her egg.

Ronaldo turned to her, "If you don't believe me turn on the news."

Connie walked over to the televison and turned it to the next news station which was in the middle of a news alert.

"This is happening live as we speak, it would appear that every human on earth has been altered in such a way as we are now seeing." The camera turns to look at a man holding a small ball of lightining in his hand looking amazed.

The camera snaps back to the reporter, "As you can see the situation is unbelievable. Early in the week scientists detected a large surge of radiant energy that was powerful enough to cover the planet, since then many people have all claimed to have a spontaneous onset of a severe headache, after which they all appear to be capable of performing acts that can only be described as both miracles and magic."

The tv turned itself off with no obvious culprit.

"Now you know to some what is happening outside." Last said turning his head towards Ronaldo. "How is it you built a device that can detect magic in under 2 days."

"When I saw the flash on the beach, I got a severe migrane that left me unable to do anything for about 6 hours. Sometime during it I passed out, during the dream I had while I was unconcious, I was standing at a large door with many odd carving in it. When I looked around all I saw was white, until I saw the outline of what appeared to be a human. When it realised that I was aware of it, it told me, 'Your toll has been payed for you and the power behind the door is now available to the people of this world who pay the toll for this knowledge.' After that the door opened behind me and I was dragged inside.

Inside I was forced to endure what seemed like endless amounts of information being poured into my head. It was all on the subject of alchemy, at first my mind couldn't handle it, then it all became clear. After that I woke up on the floor of my lair up in the lighthouse and tried out some of what I learned inside the door. To my surprise, it actually worked. I was able to transmute a chair into a wooden sculpture of a swan. Then an idea dawned on me, why not try do create a device that could trace the power back to its source, and well here we are."

Last stayed quiet for a moment, "So your the first to learn alchemy, now you really aren't allowed to touch the eggs."

"Come on why not?!" Ronaldo whined.

"Because you now know alchemy, and by all regards you will try to transmute the eggs and the dragons inside into something else, life is sacred. What can be as valuable as life?"

Ronaldo slouched in sadness, "Alright I see your point, no transmuting the living."

"Or the dead for that matter, it never works out, many try, nobody every managed it." Last said in a serious tone.

There was silence for a long moment as the eggs descended back down to their respective people.

"What now?" Garnet asked.

"I don't know about you people," Last said sitting down and folding his legs into a meditational pose, "but i'm going to place a call to one of my kind, I hope she'll hear it in her sleep."

Far off many light years from Earth, we find Lapis Lazuli chained to the ground in a dungeon far beneath the ground.

"Why?" She begged to know from her fellow gems.

"You have been deemed corrupt by the Empire, rot here for the rest of time." The gem said walking out of the room and closing the door behind him.

Lapis sat there for a very long time, crying for the fate she had been dealt.

'I would go anywhere just to be free of this place, even Earth!'

Not long after, Lapis began to feel something at the edge of her mind. It took the shape of Last in front of her, though she didn't know who she was seeing, the thought that she did know who Last was knawed it's way through her mind. Last knelt down and wispered something into her ear. The gem on her back glowed faintly for a moment as the chains that bound her broke apart.

Lapis stood and paused and let out a tear as a small memory floated to the surface.

"Last."

The roof above Lapis broke apart and every other roof above it. The moon shone down onto Lapis as she brought out her wings for the first time in some time. Alarms went off all over the facility as all the cells containing supposedly corrupt gem burst from their hinges and many hundreds of gems were freed. Those that didn't readily leap from their cells for whatever reason, floated from them after a moment. Next came the gaurds trying to subdue the gems, all of those gaurds that came close fell to the ground and retreated into their gems.

Lapis walked from her cell and raised a hand to the nearest gem, all the gems did this, without being asked or forced. When all the gems had each other in their grasp a look of scattered focus passed over Lapis's face. There was a long moment where nothing happened. Then the sound of vast wings straining against an immense weight was heard, and all those gems that had been trapped for so long, simply vanished in a gust of wind.


	6. Welcome Home

Pain.

The only thing I felt for a long time was pain.

When I first came home I landed in the garden of the castle that had housed the royal family for forever. I was greeted by the armed guard. It was standard protocol so I didn't think much of it. They grabbed hold of me and dragged me towards the castle.

I was placed in prison cell and told to rot because they thought I was corrupt. It was idiotic, they could plainly see I wasn't corrupted. But apparently the word of the royal family over rules logic.

I laid in that cell for hours, then days, then I don't know how long. Since gems didn't need food or water no one ever came down to interact with us in any way. Then one day, I was on the floor with the same hollow look in my eyes that I had had since I was throw in here. Then I saw someone appear in front of me. One second he hadn't been there the next he simply was.

I pulled myself up to a siting position and looked at him. For some reason it felt like some part of me knew exactly who he was, and it bothered me because all I did was draw a blank.

He kneeled down to me and asked me something quietly.

"Do you still remember our first sunrise?" He asked it gently as if I would break it he said it too loud.

At first I didn't quite understand it. Before I could even ask him what he meant he was gone again and the chain that had kept me here for so long snapped like twigs.

I stood trying to make sense of what had just happened, and a memory came back to me, a memory that wasn't mine.

(Into the Memory!)

We were sitting on a beach somewhere on one of the first planets to cool after our 'brother' built the starting point of the universe. That man did love it when things went BOOM!

It was the first time I had been to see the ocean and it was beautiful.

"You ready?" Last asked me.

"Yep." I piped in happily I had seen suns before of course, but I had never see one 'rise'. My expectations were through the roof from the things that everyone said about it, it didn't disappoint.

"Here we go." Last said gesturing towards the horizon.

I was so excited when I saw the first glimmer of sun come over the waves. It truly was a beautiful sight.

Last leaned over and kissed me on the forehead.

"Do you want to know how Paradise looks?" Last asked me.

I shook my head.

"I'm already here."

(End of Flashback)

I let out a tear as the memory ended. "Last."

A massive pain shot through my head and the ceiling above me broke abart.

'If I can't come back to this home then i'm going to find Last, i'm going to find a new home.'

I pulled my wings from my gem and was about to fly away when I thought about all the others that are trapped down here.

The pain returned and sirens blared as I heard all the door rip from their hinges including my own.

Many of the gems rushed from their cells but I felt a few that stayed in their cells. The strain in my head kept up as the gaurds came in and I tried to stop them, the gaurds fell to the ground and retreated into their gems, after that I picked up the gems that hadn't left their cells on their own.

Walking out of my cell I looked at all the scared gems and raised my hand out to the nearest gem. She was very slow to accept it but it seemed she enjoyed the act of kindness. Then she took her other hand and raised it to another gem. This cycle repeated until all the gems held each other.

This time I tried something new, I knew my water wings couldn't carry. But then something strange happened, I felt a new pair of wings join to my back. They seemed like they weren't actually physically there, but I needed to try them anyway. I tried to pull the gems, but it took a moment, then I couldn't think, I was just a wavelength carrying many other wavelengths.

I had to move us somewhere before we were lost in this place. There was a one sound that stood out from all the noise, it was pointing right at us.

(Copyright: One republic, Come Home)

"Come home, come home

'Cause I've been waiting for you for so long, for so long

And right now there's a war between the vanities

But all I see is you and me

And the fight for you is all I've ever known

So come home."

The song was beautiful, I stretched out whatever counted as a hand in this place and dragged all of us as close to the source as I could. I had no more strength to fly so we fell from that place and landed on a beach.

The same person that had broke my chains now stood over me. Kneeling down to me and picked me up but not before he whispered something into my ear just before I lost conciousness.

"Welcome, to a new home."


	7. Scared she won't love me anymore

It had been many hours since Lapis had transported the imprisoned gems to Beach City and she had still not woken up.

Last had carried her in and placed a barrier over the couch that he had placed her on. Last then walked outside to retrieve the gems that were simply unconcious after the flight seeing as many of them weren't able to handle the trip and retreated into their gems.

One by one, Last carried them inside and, with Steven's permission, placed them in Rose Quartz's room.

"Alright Garnet, tell me again why we are letting him do this?" Pearl asked.

Garnet looked over at Last as he placed the Last gems in Rose's room. "Their like us, they did things that the Empire didn't look kindly upon and were imprisoned, deemed corrupted."

"But Garnet, what if some of these Gems really did deserve to be locked away?"

"Then I will take them back myself." Last said with conviction. "But for now, they will stay in Rose's room where they can at least be safe. Gabriel keep an eye on them from the inside, just in case anyone wakes up." Gabriel nodded and walked into Rose's room as the door shut behind him.

"Then what about her?" Garnet said gesturing towards Lapis.

"She is differen..." Last's sentence was cut short by the sound of something very large hitting the ocean outside.

The gems rushed outside to see what it was. A much larger version of the spheres that repaired the Galaxy Warp walked out of the water and was promptly smashed by the gems.

"More of them?" Pearl said worriedly.

"It would appear so." Garnet said. "But not anymore."

"I wouldn't be to quick to assume that Garnet" Last said from the front of the beach house. "You can't assume it's over, keep watching for more of them, they'll be more coming I'm sure."

Days past and Last as well as the gems keep track of the multiple situations that were taking place on and off the planet.

Lapis had not woken from her nearly catatonic state, but Last felt confident enough that the gems wouldn't attempt to kill her that he lower the shield he had placed around her. The world at large for the most part had actually taken rather well to the addition of magic into their lives. People that had once been mocked for learning languages that were supposedly magic were now feared because those laguages of magic now actually worked. Bullies now kept away from the skyrim gamers for fear of being 'fus ro dah'd' into a coma.

There were unfortunatly, many deaths that occured due to either accidents or they were intentionally done. Lastly, several more spheres fell over the next few days. It was now nearly night over Beach City on the 6th night.

"I don't get it, why isn't she waking up? Her body is perfectly fine, and her gem isn't cracked." Pearl asked Last who had been watching for any sign of change.

"I don't think it's her body that's damaged, when I called to her, she didn't know who I was. I had hoped she would, but it can't ever seem to work out that way."

"I still don't see how that would damage her mind." Pearl said trying to understand what she was hearing.

"Did I ever tell you the second method of falling? The method that almost all of the people like me used to fall?" Last said in a hollow almost monotone voice.

"No, though I am curious about how you came to be here in general." Pearl said.

"We leave everything we are behind, stripped from us are our powers, our bodies, even our memories. When we give it all up, we fall to the world of skin and bone, the absense that is created in this process must fill itself. One life ends, another begins. We die in a sense, and are reborn on this plane of reality, completely new."

"Why would anyone ever do that?"

"We all went insane. Even in a perfect world, being alone is something that will breaks even the strongest mind. We sat among our great acheivments with all these beautiful things and slowly went mad because we had no one with us. We lived in Paradise, but it felt more like Hell.

Everyone left their there place in Paradise before me, I stayed trying to find a reason to stay. When I couldn't find a reason, the light that shone on Paradise no longer warmed me and the fire in the dark couldn't thaw me from my lonelyness I took the path between the light and the dark."

"Between?"

"I left Paradise to find a reason, I had had enough of being alone, I never want to be alone again, the Void gave me my best chance to met someone. I sat waiting, reaching as far into it as I could. I can't tell you how long I tried to search, but I found someone floating in the Void with me. I found her." Last cupped Lapis's cheek, and unconsciously Lapis smiled slightly and nuzzled closer to Last's hand.

"Well, that explains how you know her, but you still haven't explained why you think it's her mind that is damaged."

"Memories are some of the hardest things to erase, you may try to purge them but still they are there, like a splitter, at the back of your mind. Some of us that fell, the first ones, they remembered who they were after they fell. Not at first, but with time and circumstance, they pulled together what was left of their memories and their powers came roaring back to them. It is my understanding that when their old selves clashed with whoever their current identity was it broke them at their seams. Two almost completely seperate beings forced to wake to a difficult reality.

For the old self, that you are closer to a ghost than anything. For the current, it is the fact that your just some new piece to something much older than you, your basicly just a shadow, or a copy."

"Then what do they do after realizing something like that?" Pearl asked looking over at Lapis, trying to imagine the battle inside her head.

"The only thing that you can do, work together, come together, be a single person. The only way to stop endless war is to stop fighting. When you realize that your still the same person at the core, then both pieces become one, and the entity born from it is both and neither of the components. We get stronger when we are pushed to our limit."

"When do you think she will stop her battle?"

"When I step in."

Pearl looked at him like he was an idiot.

"Then why haven't you done it?"

"Because i'm scared. Scared that whoever walkes out of that battle won't love me like the ones that went into it. I can't stand the thought that I just found her again and that I caused this. I don't want to love a person that doesn't love me back, but I can't stop, no matter how hard I try. I just can't stop loving her."

Pearl looked back at Last. He had tears in his eyes, his entire expression gave the impression of a sad love struck puppy. Pearl's heart went out to Last, this is how she had been when Rose first left them.

Pearl akwardly tried to confort Last by patting him on the back.

"Do you want, to know one more thing?" Last asked slowly almost unsure if he should even say was he was about to say.

Pearl stopped patting, "What is it?" Pearl said seeing Last's uncertainty.

"We are able to see those of us that fell, as they are, we don't see peoples faces, we see their souls. Who they are at the core. You're like us, you fell long ago. I hope that you will settle your battle quickly." Last rose, lifted his left hand and placed his index and middle fingers on Pearl's gemstone.

There was a bright flash of light and Pearl's body retreated into her gem.

"Smart, make them wait to see the Hell I just woke up."

Last placed Pearl's gem in the small basket that still sat on the table and then stepped over to Lapis and picked her up bridal style.

"Please just remember me when you wake up." Last said as we took Lapis out of the house down to the beach.

Steven and Connie were on the beach talking about the new book that Connie had brought Steven while she was still caring for the dragon egg, but they quickly stopped as they saw the flash from the house and then Last walking out of the house with Lapis in his arms.

"Last! What are you doing with Lapis?" Steven yelled as he ran towards them.

Last simply ignored Steven and continued his slow march towards the water. When Steven drew to close an unseen force threw him back about a dozen or so feet.

"Steven!" Connie shouted as she ran back towards Steven.

The two watched as the ocean seemed to be waiting, it acted much like when Steven first set Lapis free. The water crawled up the beach to meet Last and more came the closer that Last carried Lapis to the water. Last stepped into the water and kept going, soon it was above his waist then his head. For a moment there was silence, then a familiar glow came from the water, the glow of fusion. The water boiled above the glow as the light grew stronger and steam poured off the water. The glow stopped and time ground to a halt for a moment, everything was still, Steven and Connie didn't know what to do.

A pillar of light burst from the ocean, similar to a warp pads light beam only 9,001 times brighter. A blurry figure rose from the water with four arms floating limply which then floated up through the pillar of light and made a small weezing sound, like it didn't know how to breath. The ocean enveloped the pillar and began to hiss as steam formed again, the wind howled around the pillar and lightining struck from the clouds above. The planet was actively trying to keep the fusion from roasting the city. It was a living star.

The light faded out, and Steven looked up at the figure, it didn't hold a stable shape all it was was a something that rapid shifted it's shape as if it couldn't decide.

Garnet and Amethyst burst from the house to see what had happened. Running over to Steven she yelled over the roaring wind. "What's happening?"

"Last fused with Lapis!" Steven screamed.

Then as suddenly as it began, it all stopped. The pillar vanished, the water fell back to the ocean, the wind ceased, and the clouds parted to reveal a beautiful night sky. The figure fell to the ocean which caught it and slowly pulled it to shore cooling it to a temperature that was safe. The others where waiting at the shore for it. Garnet looked down at the being, expecting it to burst awake and attack. After waiting over a minute Garnet knelt and checked for a pulse... there wasn't one.

"Their gone." Garnet said with finality.

"No!" Both Steven and Connie screamed as they rushed over to the fusion of Last and Lapis.

Then something strange happened, as Steven and Connie grabbed ahold of it's hand the being pulled in a large breath, raking it in under some unknown strain as it's back arched. Steven and Connie tried to let go in order to back away but their hands wouldn't release. Then they both begin to feel a pull on their lifeforce as it slumped back to the sand.

The fusions breath was shallow and quick. The pull increased as the broken voice of the entity breathed a silent song into their minds.

'All we need is a little love in our lives, all we is a little love in this dark, so strong it might just kick start, us and our broken hearts.'

Electricity passed over the entities skin and passed into Steven and Connie. The world went black, and then there was the sensation of moving. In the end they were in a place where all they could feel was each other. A light came down from above, it shone on Connie and Steven alone. It provided no light to the rest of the area.

"What is this place?" Connie asked holding on to Steven.

"I don't know, maybe it's their mind?" Steven said recalling Last saying how his mind would change after he was on Earth.

"Why is it so dark then?" Connie said scared of what might be in that darkness.

'Broken, damaged, not strong enough.' A voice said from no-where and everywhere. The voice receeded but didn't grow silent, it was there wispering in the background.

The light suddenly expanded to show a much larger area, it shown a light over unthinkable horror. Steven and Connie sat on a small raised platform that was surrounded with a lake of blood. Across the lake was a field that could have come straight out of World War 3.

There are no words that can describe the sensation that overtook them. It was an overwhelming sense that this was the end, that we are too weak to continue, the darkest mixture of thoughts. It would break the strongest of wills.

Both Connie and Steven fell to their knees and cried, this place is too much for anyone to survive.

"Don't give in." said a new voice from behind them.

Slowly they turned to see a child version of Last.

"Last?" Both of them asked in unison.

The child smiled, "Not quite, my name is Hope. I am part of the person you call Last's subconcious, i'm an emotional component. This place is very bad to talk in. Let's get going."

Hope raised a hand and a stone path raised from the Lake of Blood. Walking off the platform Hope motioned for them to follow. They walked far into the battlefield along a well warn path that didn't seem to be affected by the battle that had happened around it.

"What happened here?" Connie asked

"A battle between big people, and your wrong, not yet." Hope said as he took a turn towards an arch that stood alone away from the ruin around it.

"What do you mean not yet?" Connie said.

"This is one road that the world you live on can take, that road ends here." Hope stopped at the arc and gestured to it.

"If this is the end of the road for this place, how do we get out?" Steven asked looking at the arc.

Hope walked through the arc and slowly faded.

"We move forward."

The light quickly collapsed back onto only them and then vanished as they passed through the arc. Steven and Connie found themselves in a patch of silent woods. The atmosphere changed to that of peace. Steven and Connie looked back at the arc to see only a dirt road behind them.

"This is the junction point, we need a new destination." Hope said drawing their attention forward.

There were any number of arcs of to the sides of the path in front of them.

"Which one takes us to Last and Lapis?" Steven asked looking at the seemingly endless line of gateways.

Hope's expression darkened considerably.

"I can't take you there."

"Why not?" Connie asked. "The gate has to be here right?"

"The gate is here, it's just that. Where you wish to go, not even hope exists. They are fighting a losing battle, I can't go there. But I can show you the gate. I only hope that you can end the battle, brother knows that Last can't alone."

Hope guided them along the path for a long ways. Steven and Connie noticed that every so often a gate would be missing or vanish as they passed it. They eventually came to gateway that looked almost to be made petrified wood.

"You best get going, this place won't last much longer." Hope said with finality.

"What do you mean?" Steven asked.

"You've seen the gates disappearing, the gate you came through wasn't there when you looked back. It's all signs that the fusion in the real world is dying, the lights are going out, that means that they're so caught up in their fight that no one is keeping the body running, if they don't stop soon we all die."

Steven and Connie surpressed the urge to panic as the ground beneath them began to shake.

Hope's face turned serious, "Get going."

Steven and Connie jumped through the gate and the world went black around them.


	8. Something that might just kick-start

'I can't do this anymore.'

That was the first thing Steven and Connie heard on the other side of the gate. The battle had broken it's combatants in the worst possible way. The world was gone, and all the lights had gone out, except for the glow of a small island that floated through the Void, and even that was slowly falling apart. Last lay in chains in front of Steven and Connie there at the center of the island with what seemed like two versions of Lapis on either side of him, each holding on to an arm trying to convince him to leave with them. All Last did was stare at the ground beneath him.

"Last!" Steven exclaimed as he ran towards Last and then saw Lapis and another person, one that looked exactly like Lapis. Then Connie pointed out something to Steven he had not seen, all three were completely see through.

"Go home Steven, leave me to my death." Last said in a very defeated voice.

"And if he wishes to die," Both versions of Lapis said, "Then we're either dragging him out of here or going with him, we don't want to be alone anymore."

Steven couldn't believe what he was hearing. Last had given up, and he was making sure he died. Connie's expression grew angry as her eyesbrows srcunched together.

"If you really want to die, then why are you in the safest spot in this whole place!" Connie shouted at him.

Last lifted his head to look them both in the eye, while his eyes were hollow, devoid of life of color.

"I wanted to make sure I had the most time to find a new reason. Steven, if you have anything left to say, it is your last chance, this place will be gone within an hour." Last spoke slowly, making sure that each word was understood, and it's meaning was known.

"What about Earth? What happened to seeing and living on a beautiful world? Do you really want to end Lapis with you?"

"I lied, yes your home is beautiful, but I lived in Paradise for an eternity. And now that I have someone to share it with I can truely enjoy it." Last said with a smile and resolution. Last then picked up a hand and pulled down his shirt to show his gem had been cracked, so much so that it seemed that it was irrepairably broken. "My heart is dust and sand, it was only with my love for these two and their love for me that it warmed. No longer sand but still so fragile."

Steven racked his brain, he tried to think of a way to get Last to want to live. Then he thought about how Lapis was probably his reason in the first place.

"Fuse." Steven said

Both Lapis's looked at him with a questioning glance. Steven pointed at the two of them and then put those two fingers together to suggest fusion.

"You two said that you wanted to live right?" Both nodded at the question.

"Then fuse and use that power to force him to leave, if you two won't die then he won't want to go right. I mean come on he's not leaving without you two right?" Connie finished the idea for Steven.

Both Lapis's looked at each other and smiled.

"Good idea," One said, "Why didn't we think of that?" The other finished.

Both of them kissed Last on the cheek, "See you in a minute." They both said as they stood and began to dance with each other. Their gems glowed a soft glow as they passed into one another. It wasn't like normal fusion, there was no grand change in shape, there was two and then there was one. The glow faded and a stronger light replaced it. Lapis now stood as a single person with wings that stretched towards the black sky above, those wings were not water but solid wings of such beauty that they would have made even angels grow jealous. Along with their beauty those wings gave of a light that seemed to rebuild the world around her.

The light grew stronger the closer to Last she walked, when she reached Last she knelt down to him and his chains vanished. They looked into each others eyes for a long time, Last looked to see if she was the same person, and Lapis looked for any light in his eyes. Lapis smiled when she saw it, it was small but it was there. Then Last saw she had not forgotten him afterall. The chains broke and the two embraced and shared a kiss, a kiss not of anything dark, the only thought the two had on their minds was, 'I missed you so much'.

Last's wings, which had been completely no-existent since they had arrived, began to come back into existence and quickly at that. They glowed with a light to match Lapis's wings. Then their light grew, when their light combined reached the edge of the island a piece which had just broken away stopped its fall and cameback to reconnect to the island, many more pieces did the same. The world was rebuilding and even in the blinding light everything was clear to see. A light appeared far above not as strong as sunlight it shone like moonlight or should it be said that it was like a crack had appeared and the light of night came pouring in from the other side. Lapis pulled Last to his feet as they looked up at it, and then smiled as they looked back at each other.

"I think that our friend upstairs is puting on a show for us." Lapis said.

"I think your right on that one." Last said as he wrapped his hand around her's.

"Do you want to see the sun rise again like we did so long ago?"

Lapis smiled and said with small tears in her eyes, "Today, and everyday after it."

The light engulfed all and blotted out the world again as Steven and Connie once again felt that they were moving very far, very fast.

"It's time to wake up." Lapis and Last said in a happy unison. And it all goes blank after that.

(Transition back to reality)

The light from the moon was the first thing Steven noticed when he came back, the next was that he was laying on the beach still holding on to the fusion. It no longer hurt to touch the entities skin and it's eyes were open, both of them a kind of sky blue color.

The fusion glowed once more as it split apart back into it's base components. There was heat, but it didn't seem to effect either Steven or Connie. The world seemed not to reject the fusion this time, there was an almost telepathic hum that passed through the planet, and as the light faded on the beach sitting in the sand was both Last and Lapis.

"Are you too...?" Connie asked slowly.

"Better? I would say yes, I have her again. I can't ask for more than that." Last said as he interlaced his fingers with Lapis's. Then a look of realization came across Last's face.

"Umm, where's Amethyst and Garnet?"

Everyone looked around to find them.

"Opps." Last said as he picked up their gems from the sand. But before anyone could run over to see there was a spark of energy that passed from Last to the gems. Then the gems rose from his hands and retook physical form.

As the others made it too Last they saw Ruby, Saphire, and Amethyst looking around rather dazed.

"Wait, WHAT!" Steven and Connie shouted when they saw Ruby and Saphire. They turned to Steven and Connie and quickly realized that they weren't fused and quickly fused back together.

"Umm, we can explain." Garnet said as she tried to dig herself out of the hole she was in.

"You're been a fusion the whole time?" Connie asked in sheer confusion and shock.

"Yes, we were going to introduce you for your birthday." Garnet said.

"You two didn't know?" Lapis asked.

Both Steven and Connie both shook their heads.

"Well, the more you know. Now then Lapis, I feel it's time we get some more energy and magic flowing through this place. It seems that two dragon eggs won't do." Last said.

"How do you intend to get more?" Lapis asked.

Last just smiled and raised a hand. "I'll give you a hint. First, they need to see Truth."

An image appeared in the sand beneath the group. First a circle, then lines crossing the circle.

"What is this?" Garnet asked.

"I can answer that." Both Pearl and Ronaldo said on opposite sides of the beach. Pearl was standing on the deck of the house, and Ronaldo was simply standing on the other side of the image carved into the sand.

"Your fight didn't last long, she give up easy?" Last asked Pearl or whoever she was now.

"No, THEY were to stubborn, like me. They found common ground and fused." Pearl said as she walked down the steps to the beach.

"It's a human transmutation circle, with a few minor changes. I'm going to assume that it's so the gems can go with us." Rolando said as he walked into the circle.

"Quite." Pearl said as she joined them in the circle. "Hello Garnet, miss me?" Pearl said in a flirty tone.

"I recommend you save that for later, we need to be going." Last said

Pearl was not pleased with being told what to do but complied.

"Fine, let's go knock on the door." Pearl said as she brought her hands together, as did Last, Lapis, and Ronaldo. They all slammed their hands onto the circle and then the group began being de-constructed by long black waving hands that with every touch broke down parts of their bodies.

"Don't panic people, this is supposed to happen." Lapis said to everyone as they were terrified seeing their bodies de-constructed under them.

When the de-construction reached their eyes, they began to see white, and then they felt as if they were moving very fast. Off in the distance they saw many doors floating in the middle of the white Oblivion.

They all arrived together in front of the doors.

"So you've decided to show others the Truth. Will you pay for their passage?" An outline of a man said from behind them. Only Steven, Connie, Garnet, and Amethyst turned to see him.

"My limbs, four people need to see truth, four limbs." Last said as he examined each door.

Now everyone turned to stare at Last, even the outline.

"Are you sure your willing to pay that much? It's highly impracticale to pay such a high price." The outline said almost unwilling to accept the payment.

Last just smiled, "Didn't you hear Brother?" Last said as he revealed his gem, which had gained a bluer color since last it had been seen. "I've got a gem now, i'll make new ones."

At first there was shock on Brother's face, then an insane grin came over his face.

"You always were clever, but this is over the top." He said as he broke out laughing.

Last turned and walked to his brother. "Care to take it now, or after they've seen it?"

The door opened and again long black hands appeared and shot out from everyone's respective door grabbing onto them, except for those that have seen the truth already.

"After will do, I know you'll pay." The brother said.

"Steven." Last said as he turned to a terrified group struggling to fight off the hands.

"Relax, they mean you no harm."

With their struggling lessened, the four of them were dragged into their respective doors.

"We'll be waiting for you to get out." Lapis said as she stepped out of the way of the hands that guided them into their doors and each one closed behind them.

"Lapis." Last said drawing her attention from the door. "Care to carry my heart out of here, I'm gonna need time to rebuild all four of my limbs."

Lapis nodded as Pearl made a gagging noise. "Disgusting, you two were always so lovey dovey, makes me sick thinking about it all."

"Hmm, I'm gonna put that under a 'you problem'." Last said as he full-on kissed Lapis in front of Pearl just to make her mad. Lapis just giggled and blushed.

The doors opened once more and spit out the 4 of them.

"Did you enjoy the trip?" Lapis asked them.

They all looked slightly spaced out but quickly came back down to reality.

"It was... interesting to say the least." Connie said.

"Now the price must be paid." Brother said.

Last's arms and legs began to de-construct and as the limbs were broken apart they began to appear on 'Brother'.

"The price is paid. See you again, when someone dies." Brother said as Last retreated into his gem. Lapis picked up his gem.

"How do we leave." Garnet said looking around.

"Walk through again." Pearl said pointing to Brother who side stepped to reveal her door.

The door opened to a silver light flooding out from behind it, the light of the moon.

"Before you go, care to tell me why you people all need to see the Truth?" Brother asked.

"My guess is that Last's going to make a door to somewhere. Somewhere with alot of magic." Lapis said as she picked up Last's gem and walked through the door.

The others followed quickly. The last to go through was Pearl.

"Oh by the way, nice to see you again." Pearl said to Brother.

"Nice to see you too. It's been too many eons." Brother said.

On the other side of the door the group appeared back on the beach.

"How long do you think Last will take to heal." Steven asked.

Lapis passed a massive jolt of energy through Last's gem. "About 5 seconds."

Last came out of his gem with a new set of arms and legs.

"Alright, let's get on to the next part. Give me a minute." Last said as he vanished with the sound of wings flapping following it. Several seconds later Last reappeared with a book which he was flipping through very fast trying to find a certain page.

"Here it is, Portal to Alfheim. Let's see, 4 alchemists (8 recommended) check, living wood for portal frame check, good location for permenant door?" Last looked around for a suitable spot.

"I've got it, up on top of the mountain." Last said as he looked back down at the book. "Last thing is to tose into the door a sapling imbued with enough energy to start it up and a... Ohh, wait." Last said as he skipped mentioning that ingredient and focused in on a certain sentence. "Must be in clear view of a full moon."

"That's easy." Connie said pointing up at the night sky to show their was a full moon directly overhead.

Last smiled as he snapped the book shut. "Perfect. Everyone to the hill, it's time to see a place as beautiful as Paradise."

Everyone followed Last up the Hill, with the exception of Lapis who flew ahead and prepared the frame of the portal. When the rest of everyone reached the top of the hill there was a large circular ring of wood rooted into the ground.

"Good work, now everyone to the edge of the circle and be ready." Last said as he walked into the cirlce and pulled from nowhere a sapling. Gently planting the sapling in the center of the ring and passed a spark of red energy to the sapling, attempting to not let anyone see him do it. Last stepped out and brought his hands together as did everyone else did.

"Ready guys, the goal isn't to alter the frame but use it as a means to channel the energy into it, Pearl, Lapis, and I will see to the rest." Last slammed his hands down on the frame and the others followed making blue energy spark from the frame as the energy began to arch towards the plant. It began to grow at an extreme rate and the moon seemed to glow brighter down on them.

The plant became a tree that had the look of oak but grew to heights only a redwood could acheive and was thick enough to reach the edges of the ring.

"Your jobs done gems, let the old people handle it from here." Last ordered.

"Hey, we're not old!" Both Lapis and Pearl shouted.

"We're older than this universe, that's old, GET OVER IT!" Last barked at them.

A line of light appear in the trunk of the tree. The line began to widen until it was a gap, then the gap became a hole. As the final expansion of the hole came about as a beam of energy passed between the tree and the moon.

"The link is established, now let's setup a recieving end to this door." Last shouted over the ambient sound that the energy was making. From there the wings on both Last and Lapis's began to glow a violent white color.

"Pearl, hold the door! We're making the jump." Lapis shouted as she and Last stood up and jumped through the gap in the tree and vanished. And as suddenly as the beam started between the tree and the moon it ceased. The light in the tree dimmed until things could be seen on the other side and a layer of glassy material covered the hole.

Pearl pulled her hands from the rings as they began to smoke.

"Well, portal's set up who wants to see Alfheim first." Pearl said trying to cool her hands.

Steven was the first to step up, followed instantly by Connie.

"How do we get through?" Connie asked seeing the material that seemed to seperate the two sides of the portal.

"Simple." Pearl said as she walked to the door and placed her hand on it. The next moment she was on the other side of the door.

'You do that.' Pearl mouthed from the other side of the door before walking out of view of the portal.

Steven and Connie both placed their hands on the glass and were overcome with an extreme sense of disorientation. Then they were on the other side of the glass. They didn't feel as if they had moved, they felt like they were in the same spot they had been in a moment before.

Taking their hands from the mirror they turned to see the sun shining down on a city grown out of the forest. It was a beautiful sight to behold. Last and the others pulled them from their awe to allow Garnet and Amethyst to pass through the door.

"Woo." Amethyst said in awe. Garnet was Garnet.

"Well then," Last said, "time to show you around the place." Last said walking off with everyone in tow.


	9. An elven aboud

"Sometimes you can give everything and get nothing in return, this is the risk of human transmutation." -Unknown

Many hours later as the sun was begining to set, Last came to a stop in front of the doors of a massive house.

"Alright, we can stop here." Last said.

Both Steven and Connie collapsed on the ground behind him panting from exhaustion.

Last turned in confusion and chuckled a little.

"It appears I've forgotten that there are a few mortals walking with us." Last said neiling down and placing a hand on both Steven and Connie.

"You two look like you could use some energy." Last said as energy arched from Last's hands to Steven and Connie.

Both Steven and Connie stopped panting as Last pulled them the ground.

"Now then," Last said gesturing towards the entrance of the house. "Shall we go in?"

Everyone began to walk inside, and the last two to walk in were Connie and Last.

"Are we even allowed to be in here?" Connie asked stopping in the doorway.

"The owner owes me a few favors after my last visit." Last said pushing her into the house, but as he was about to walk inside he stopped and turned his head just far enough to look back over his shoulder.

"No, can't be. They can't be here. This place is cut off, no way in but with a door." Last said in a tone that suggested he knew somebody was out there.

"Come on sweety." Lapis said coming up in front of Last and scaring him.

"What is it? What's wrong?" Lapis said with a bit of concern.

"Hopefully nothing." Last said as he walked inside and closed the door behind himself. "Now let's go see the owner of the house." Last said brushing by Lapis. "Possibly put up a few wards."

"Be careful Steven." Connie said chasing after Steven who was looking through all the room of the house after sneaking off with Connie.

"Ohh, come on Connie. This place is awesome." Steven said stopping in front of a large set of doors.

"What if we find something bad in here?" Connie asked worried.

"Someday Connie you'll have to take a chance." Steven said to Connie gesturing towards the door next to them.

Connie at this point was tired of chasing Steven and decided to open the door just to get him to stop. Connie pushed on the doors and then opened to show a large room with 3 large windows on one side letting in the last few rays of the sun.

"It's a ballroom!" Connie exclaimed running inside.

"Wait, what's a ballroom?" Steven asked following her in.

"It's a room that is made for people to dance in." Connie said suddenly getting sadder.

"What's wrong Connie? You looked so excited a minute ago." Steven said.

"It's just, I can't really dance with people watching me, I get to nervous." Connie said sadly.

"Well then, I think I might have a way to help with that." Steven said pulling out his phone from his pocket and begins to play a song. Steven then put out a hand to Connie

"Come dance with me, nobody else, just us." Steven said trying to emphasize that there wasn't another person there to watch her.

Connie was hesitant at first but after a few moments took the hand that Steven had offered her. Steven immediatly took the lead and started with a simple few steps, then Connie began to catch on to the dance and began to enjoy herself. The dance continued on like this for a short while until a rock 'magically' appeared and tripped Steven. Connie then caught him, and it was then that the sun was lost behind the horizon and Steven's gem glowed a bright light that engulfed the both of them.

"Guests!" Exclaimed a rather well dressed elven man in a tunic that seemed to be woven out of plant life. As Last walked into the main part of the house with the others. "I never get guests anymore..." Then the elf saw Last in the back of the group with Lapis holding onto him.

"Well well, what do we have here?" He said walking through the group to Last. "I see you found your girlfriend. But what I don't get is why you came ba..."

"We need to spend the night." Pearl interjected.

The elf turned to look at Pearl and stared for quite a length of time, analysing her.

With a smirk he said, "So he found two of you, I thought he would never find o..." The smirk faded from his face as he turned to the nearest wall and fell silent.

A moment later a door formed in the wall and a moment later Stevonnie walked through.

"Hey guys, check this out." Stevonnie remarked gesturing to herself.

Everyones reaction to Stevonnie was different, but the most noteable among them were Garnet's almost disturbingly big smile, Pearl went up and congratulated the two, and Lapis handed a 5 dollar bill to a snickering Amethyst.

"Alright this is taking forever, move this on to the next chapter, please for the audience?"

As you have asked, it is done.


	10. The Last Resort

"So..." Last said sitting on a chair opposite Steven and Connie. "Back here again."

Steven and Connie looked around. They were in a white room with a single door of to the side leading out and light that came from nowhere.

"Where are we exactly? And why aren't we we fused anymore?" Connie getting up from her chair.

"Steven should know where we are, he's been in here before. Then again it was a bit more open last time he was here." Last said looking at Steven expectantly as did Connie.

Steven took a moment to look around. "We're inside your head again aren't we."

Connie looked over at Last in slight awe and Last cracked a smile. "You really do pay attention to what people say."

Last stood up from his chair and walked to the door. "The reason you aren't fused in here is because even when your bodies are physically made into one being your minds remain seperate. Two people, two different places in mind, that's where you differ from the gems Steven, you stay who you are, you don't blend, your distinct."

Pushing the door open, light flooded into the room. "Now let me show you why your here."

Steven and Connie followed Last out the door to see endless rolling hills going off in all directions, but turning around the door they had come through was gone.

"Why does that keep happening?" Connie asked to no-one inparticular.

"The mind is not a solid structure, think about it like thoughts they go anywhere they want and the same thought might not bring you to the same place. These things shift, they flow. This is the most peaceful place I can imagine, rolling hills, a few clouds in the sky, and a breeze to keep you cool. But that's not why we're here."

The three of them began to lift from the ground and float into the sky.

"I keep some information here that you need to see." The ground fell away and the sky came closer, in less than a moment they floated in front of something rather odd. It was a circlular platform with only the outer part of it being able to stand on as there was no center section. On the outer edge stood 12 seats, one mirroring another.

"This is was designed to basically act as divine intervention." Last said. "Whenever me or the others wished to overturn a law of reality we brought this device from wherever is happened to be. It only needs one to function and that one can be almost anyone."

"How does it work?" Steven asked. Last pulled them down to stand on the structure and to the nearest seat.

"Sit down on the seat." Last said to Steven and as he did so an orb of energy appeared in the center of the circle. "Now think."

Steven thought of the field below and within an instant the structure dropped far to the ground below, it was done within an instant, as fast as thought.

"Good, thought it might not allow you to use it. There are limits to what you can do alone with this, it is its own entity it doesn't have to listen, but with sufficient energy and will, it will listen to whatever it is told to do by whoever sits on one of the seats. Now let's see what your roof is, try to bridge a door from on of the gems dreams to here."

"Wait, why would you make something like this?" Connie asked.

"We made it as a last resort. 12 seats, 12 of us. Together we could rewrite reality down to it's most basic components. We're not all powerful, we just have different limits, the more people know the more they can do. And the older you get the more you learn, so you can imagine the amount of information we know, we've watched the universe unfold since its inception." Last said lost in long gone memories.

With Last's thoughts turned to the past, the scenery below changed to reflect the memories he thought so deeply on and his image began to flicker, his clothes changed as well as the color of his eyes and the sky grew stormy.

"Umm, Last?" Steven asked.

"Wha, oh right, imagine one of the gems and then imagine a bridge between them and us." Last said pulled from past memories, the terrain below resumed being made of grassy hills and a gentle breeze then the sky cleared and the sun re-emerged.

Steven set to work and within a moment four portals opened up, each showing a different area behind it. Last looked to the two on the right and immediatly bolted in front of them blocking the view of what was inside of them.

"Steven! For the love of GOD shut these doors!" Last said frantically.

"Why," Connie asked, "Steven, who's minds do those led to?"

"Umm, Lapis and Pearl." Steven said just before a pair of moans escaped from both the portals and a bra flew from the portal on the far right.

At this point Last pulled a sword from no-where and began to try and destroy the portals. "Children shouldn't see what those two dream of! It's too X-rated. No looking that up. That goes for you to readers."

The portals fell apart and vanished, "Now for the ultimate test." Last said as the other door fell apart and sitting in the chair opposite Steven's. "Stop me from issuing a command." Last said as he sat down.

"Why would I do that?" Steven asked.

"Because it will be needed, I don't know when, I don't know why, but someone will try to use this weapon for something horrible, and I won't be able to stop them. It might even be me that tries to do something insane. Now, stop me or Connie will be erased from existence."

Connie's lower body began to become transparent.

"Why are you doing this?" Connie exclaimed.

"Because I need to know he can do what needs to be done! If your strength is even with those you fight, it comes down to wit, if that is even, then your will is your last chance. People die when we don't give it our all, I don't want to see people die anymore!"

"I'm just a kid, I can't beat you!" Steven shouted desperately.

"If that's what you think she really will be lost to you." Last said as he full focused upon erasing Connie.

Connie was vanishing quickly now and Steven couldn't overcome Last.

"Steven." Connie said touching Steven's arm with the only arm she had at the moment.

"Please don't go." Steven whimpered.

"Then believe you can save me." Those were Connie's last words as her body vanished entirely with tears in her eyes and her glasses fell to the stone below along with a single tear.

The image of Connie crying and then being lost to him snapped something at the back of Steven's mind, it could be said that the dam finally gave way under the strain and unleashed something new in Steven. Many Steven's began to appear at the other seats all with a look of absolute determination.

Connie's glasses began to rise from the stone to eye level and froze there. A look of extreme strain enveloped Last's face, he began to strain to keep Connie gone. Then he simply couldn't, he couldn't defeat Steven, not with what he felt. The outline of a person began to come into existence, then the outline thickened into a body. Last cracked a smile as he reversed his direction, instead of trying to erase Connie again, he began to help rebuild her, only with a somewhat different format.

A few drops of red came from Last and floated over to Connie.

'I hope it is enough.' Last quietly thought to himself.

Connie returned fully within a moment with a gasp of breath. Looking at her hands she saw that she was again existent.

"Now to make sure you can't do that again." Steven said but just before he could do so the entire structure vanished beneath them, they were close enough to the ground that the fall was not enough to harm Steven or Connie, Steven's clones however went up in a poof of clouds.

"What did you do with it?" Steven yelled at Last.

"I moved it away, far away." A voice said from nowhere. Another Last fell from the sky and tried to cleave the Last that stood in front on Steven and Connie with double-edged twin swords. He avoided and pulled his own set of swords.

"You shouldn't know I'm in here." The first Last says. (1)

"You honestly think you can hid inside MY head!" Says the second (2) as their battle continues.

"This isn't your mind anymore, you stuborn old man. I want to live as much as you do, I refuse to sit inside this hell house for another eternity!" (1)

The battle and conversation continue on like this, but let's change this to Steven and Connie's perspective.

'I can't understand this.' Steven thought. 'Last tries to erase Connie then another Last shows up.'

"What is happening here?" Connie asked to nobody inparticular.

"I don't know." One Last says. (2)

"I do." Says the other. (1)

"What the hell are you then? Some copy of me?" One Last says. (2)

"I'm that part of you where you bury it all, every dark day you ever buried inside your head made me. I'm just like you, except I will do evil. I'll burn the universe if I desire. I'll do anything to further my freedom from you. So I started to train Steven on how to use the weapon." (1)

The battle pauses for a moment.

"You call this training? You tried to erase Connie, it would have broken him far beyond repair if you had managed it. Your ends don't justify your means of doing it. Why do you think I put you in this memory? I put all that ever haunted me in a place where I felt most at peace. It's because here is where you do the least harm!" (2)

"I will do anything I please." (1) Said as he ran towards Steven and Connie with his swords in hand.

The second Last raised a wall in front of him, which he rammed through. When the wall failed the second Last was left with a choice. Let Steven and Connie met whatever fate the first had in mind, or use the last resort that he could. The second Last clapped his hands together with a force that shook ground. This caused the first Last to look back for a moment, and then turn back around to run at Last when the thought of what was happening came to his mind.

"ENOUGH!"

The second Last slammed one hand to the ground as he put the other to his gem. The world shock and fell apart as Steven, Connie, and both Last's were deconstructed.

Oblivion came into sight after a moment of being rebuilt along with 3 portals to Truth.

"You can't do this!" (1) Shouted with anger.

"I can, and it will be done." (2) Said with an ambient voice that came from everywhere.

"What are you doing?" Connie asked.

The second Last only smiled a sad smile before walking to Steven and Connie.

"Today I use the last resort, when I myself become the enemy I must defeat. I made the choice that I would give all that I am to another so the evil in me will never escape, well everything but shape, memory, and desire. I must put those in something else. The things which make this darkness must never corrupt another. But I won't forget everything. I'll still have the first sunrise, and everything before it."

Last (2) walked to face himself. "We will be one again, there is no point to fight anymore."

"NO!" The first Last pushed himself away, and ran towards his portal. "This will not happen if I destroy our door!" Claps and tries to destroy his door, but it doesn't happen. "Why isn't it working?!"

"Because I will not allow it to occur." Said the outline of a man that gaurds the portals.

"Why you bastard?!"

"If this is what is desired by the owner of a portal, you can't interfere."

The second Last walks back to Steven and Connie. "You each get half, and Connie, this means you WILL, last as long as Steven."

Connie's eyes widen. "You...mean..."

"Today, and everyday after you can be with him, if some part of you stopped you for that reason, no more. It's time to look forward, not back. I above all else should know this." (2)

The second Last took one last look at his portal. "The man looking up at the night sky. That is the image etched in my portal, it represents me, and my desire to know what is out there. Every portal in some way is supposed to represent God or the universe. That is the source of this alchemical knowledge, and that is the truth etched into these doors."

Last (2) raised both hands to Steven and Connie. "I give you all that I know, and I that I can."

Steven and Connie both placed a hand in his. Both Last's were dragged into their door as it opened.

"Tell Lapis...I'm sorry..." Last (2) said.

With those words Last was gone and after a moment only one Last was thrown from the door onto the ground, unmoving. In the next moment, all of the doors opened and pulled their respective people in.

"I do hope that you don't stay like this forever brother." The outline said looking at Last's portal after the doors closed.

Both Steven and Connie were imbued with a vast amount of knowledge as the were sent back. However Connie was being changed as she passed through her door. The few drops of red that had been put inside her body by the dark Last expanded. For a moment she was made of red.

They all appeared back inside Last's mind, but this time it was blank. The same as where the portals stood except with no outline man and no portals, A true Oblivion.

"Steven." Connie said tapping his shoulder. "Wha... since when are your eyes blue?" Steven asked Connieas her eyes were now a very sharp electric blue.

"Really...nevermind that, look behind you." Connie said pointing behind Steven at a lone door, with Last laying next to it. A door standing in the middle of nothing with a note on it. Steven and Connie walked to it and read the note.

'Home, we all want to go home.'

Steven touched the handle to the door and dissappeared, Connie dragged Last's hand to the handle before she did the same.

"LAST!" Was the first thing Stevonnie heard as she woke.

Bolting out of bed she ran to find the source of the scream. Eventually they found Lapis desperately trying to wake Last.

"WAKE UP!" Lapis screamed at him with tears.

It only took a moment for what this meant to sink in.

"We're sorry." Stevonnie said beginning to cry. "He's sorry."

Lapis looked over to Stevonnie. Slowly she got up and walked over to Stevonnie.

"What did he do?" Lapis asked afraid of the answer.

"He gave us everything." Stevonnie started to cry very hard into her hands.

"Hello?" Last's voice came as a great surprise to both Stevonnie and Lapis.

Last was sitting up in bed simply looking at them in a strangly blank way. Lapis ran back over and embraced him to which he froze.

"Don't ever scare me like that again!" Lapis said crying into Last.

"I'm sorry but..." Last said pulling Lapis away. "Am I supposed to know you?"

Ya, I know I'm evil. -author


	11. Far Below Square One

"So let me get this story straight in my head." Last says looking at his face in a mirror then turning away from it.

"I'm some guy called Last," Last said pointing a finger at himself. "Your my girlfriend or something along those lines?" Last pointed at Lapis who nodded.

"And your my perverted sister?" Last said pointing at Pearl who fained being hurt by the statement but nodded.

Then turning to Stevonnie, Garnet, and Amethyst. "Then where do you people fit into this story?"

"We are of a species of ancient..." Garnet was cut off in the middle of her explanation.

"No, not what your species is, I know that much about you, it pours off you and the purple one, what I want to know is who you are to me."

Last then turned for a moment towards Stevonnie as his eyes flashed white. "Your more interesting however, you appear to only be about 25% gem, the rest is a species I don't know, to top it off it looks like you have two souls in you." Last's eyes then reverted to their normal blue color.

"That would be my part." The Connie half of Stevonnie said. "You see I'm human, Steven, the person I'm fused with, makes up the other half. He's only half human."

This surprised Last as he walked up to Stevonnie for an uncomfortably close inspection. "I know your not lying but..." Last hesitated for a moment as he looked into the fusion's eyes for something. "I didn't make the first gems able to reproduce sexually, they could use various methods to form new gems, but your simply impossible."

Backing away to get a more complete view he turned to Lapis. "How long has it been since the fist sunrise?"

Lapis thought the question odd but answered. "14 billion or so years ago, why?"

The number put an expression of both shock and confusion on Last's face as he seemed to begin to panic.

"14 BILLION YEARS?! The last thing I remember before waking to the sound of you crying is the sensation of being torn apart by the start of all. I can't have lost so much time..."

Last turned back to Stevonnie and bolted over to her, holding her by the neck and picking her up.

"Where did it go! I saw the knowledge behind your eyes, that is MY knowledge! Where did you take my memories?!" Last's grip tightened as everyone attempted to stop him from strangling the life from Stevonnie.

"Last...resort..." Stevonnie managed to say before she fell apart and both Steven and Connie burst apart gasping for breath.

Last frooze as Garnet attempted to knock him out with gautlet to the face. Last stopped the punch a quarter of an inch from his face, he blinked.

"You went through the door... and I gave you all that I could..." Last looked down at both Steven and Connie as he fell to his knees. "I can't remember why I did it, but their all screaming at me that it's true..."

"Last..." Lapis knelt down next to him. "Who's screaming?"

Last's expression went blank as his hands seemed to move on their own. They moved Last's shirt to show his gem, a single finger tapped on the gem and its color went from clear to blood red. "The people inside of me..." Last doubled over as he began to cry and cover his ears. "Too many voices, too many people, too much pain, too...much...screami..." Last went sillent as he seemed to lose consciousness and his body went limp.

*Several minutes later*

"Well, he's not dead. That you should be thankful for." The elven house owner said after he walked in on all the commotion. Picking Last up and putting him back onto the bed he put his hands to Last's chest and a something green seemed to come from his hands.

"Why is it that whenever you come here, you need medical ninjutsu performed on you?" The elf said the unconcious Last (I have no spell-check leave me alone).

"What's wrong with him? Besides the fact that he's passed out in my house?" The elf said without looking away from his work.

"He throw all of his memories away, attacked Steven and Connie because he couldn't recall he gave them all of his knowledge, and he apparently has a philosophers stone for his gem." Lapis explained in a completly monotone voice, almost to the point where you assume she just flat out shut off her emotions.

The elves face darkens as he stops healing Last to remove Last's shirt and inspect the stone. The size of Last's stone made his eyes go wide. "It's massive, most stones never even get to be the size of a twig. This must be the size of an actual heart..." The elf touched a finger to the gem/stone (I'm gonna call it a gem for simplicity.) and after a moment he ripped it away.

"There's just no end to them... There must be at least a planets worth of life in there, it's an endless ocean of screaming voices." Backing away and turning around to head towards the door, he stopped next to Lapis. "I can't heal what the burden he is under, and I don't expect he'll ever wake up from the Hell inside that stone." Giving her a comforting hug, Lapis began to cry. "I'm truly sorry..."

"You did what you could Alfie." Lapis said. Alfie let go and walked out the room shuting the door behind himself.

"What do we do! We have to do something!" Connie and Steven both shouted. Garnet walked over and hugged them.

"I don't think we can Steven." Garnet said in a sad tone.

"He'll find a way..." Lapis said. "He's lived with that stone for who knows how long. He's survived it once, he'll do it again." Lapis walked to the door. "We're leaving, all of us."

It was at that moment that Last's body lifted from the bed and floated up to Lapis where it stopped.

"He searched for an eternity for me. The least I can do is take care of him while he is like this." Lapis said as gravity retook Last's body and he dropped into Lapis's arms.

"Now let's go home..."

(Three years later)

It's been three years since Alfheim and Last has yet to wake up. No one has been willing to say it but everyone has thought it, that Last may actually never wake up.

On a much better note, the world has stablized over the last three years from the revival of magic. New laws to restrict the use of forbidden magic, new countries built for magic users only, the works.

Connie has long since taken up train with Pearl on swordsmanship. Seeing as they discovered about a day after they returned that Connie's body was now partially made of a Philosophers Stone, Connie has been able to go on missions regularly. When they didn't conflict with her studies or spending time with her family.

The robitic spheres continued to fall until the events of Warp Tour came to pass.

Blah, Blah, Blah. On with the story! Next chapter.


	12. Replay

My first memory was of nothing...

I can't tell you if I simply came into existence by the will of some higher being or if I simply appeared into the emptiness for no reason.

There were others, of course. 14 to be exact. We all just floated for eons, waiting for something we couldn't describe. Then one of us did something that the rest of us took an interest in, and were shocked by.

"Brother, what are you doing?" We all asked.

We all called him 'Brother' simply because he was the closest thing to a brother any of us had.

He had put intricate circles in his hands and he had a small content look on his face.

"I'm tired of nothing, it's time to make something out of this nothing." Brother brought his hands together and he was gone, there was instead something else. All his life and power, in the smallest point imaginable. In that moment we all died as that infintismal point burst from its small shell and #14/Death had his first reapings. It was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. At death I saw a birth.

We all woke up sitting in front of a grand gate. The gates opened and we walked through to see #13/Brother, he was building out of himself. For everything he made, something was lost from him.

At first it was amazing; fresh air, a sun to warm us. When it was complete we stood back and marveled at it. We built as beautiful place to call home. Then we stopped for a moment, the sun had set for the first time and we were tired.

Then I met her...

I'd seen her while we floated and while we built, but I had never talked to her. So I did just that, we talked for a very long time about a few things. The ocean she had taken such care to make, she said she made it without looking just to be surprised by it. We talked about my constructs, things like that. We walked to a beach with a view of the horizon and watched the sun rise on the place we all built together.

I smiled and closed my eyes when the first rays came up over the horizon. Then this became my favorite sight, my best memory. I leaned over and kissed her forehead, she started blushing. It's the best feeling to see that girl blush i'll tell you.

"Do you want to know how Paradise looks?" I had asked.

She shook her head. "I'm already here."

She kissed my forehead this time. "We built it together."

And that is where my memory cuts off. All I have left to show for what I do remember are the wings on my back, a gift from Brother...

'Wait that's not right, there's something else.' A sharp pain passed through my mind as I felt the emptiness where so many memories should be. I pushed at it, trying to find another memory. The pain grew all the more intense, I wanted to stop and I wanted to keep going.

Then I heard something small hit the ground next to me. I opened my eyes to black, the sky and ground dark as midnight. I sat up and looked behind me. It was a small stone no larger than a peeble but it glowed with a white light that illuminated even the black ground.

Reaching for it, the thought came to me that I knew what this was as I picked it up.

"To carve out of this mountain of dispair, a stone of Hope." Those words echoed for a long time.

Then I started dieing again...

A memory... One had surfaced.

Many years had passed. So many years. This Paradise is driving me mad.

Only three of us still remain here. The others all left and I don't blame them.

We stood at the edge of Paradise, beyond the gates, looking down at the universe.

"I'm leaving today." Mellon said. Lapis and I weren't surprised.

I sighed and pulled from my pocket a small white stone and gave it to him.

"We have the power to turn our despair into hope. I give you mine so that we can both have some measure of peace." It took him a moment to understand what I had said. Then, right before he jumped off the edge I caught a smile on his face an infintismally small tear.

The pain ended for a moment, I looked down at my hand and the Stone glowed brighter.

"So that we can both have some measure of peace..." Mellon's voice echoed through the dark.

As I stood, one more memory pulled itself from my blank mind and I remembered.

There were so many people just standing out there. I watched them for days and they didn't move an inch. So many souls just waiting for something. This is Paradise they should be happy here! I'm afraid however, that they learned in a moment, what took us eons to realize. This place is just a house, it doesn't feel like a home.

So I decided it was finally time to leave. 'Maybe next time I'm here it'll feel more like a home...' I thought quietly to myself.

I gathered everything I had in Paradise and stored it in a place I could always reach. I was about to reach the gates when I passed a little girl. She grabbed onto my pant leg and didn't let go until I looked at her.

"Take us with you..." The only thing ever heard her say. A few moments later the other souls took notice and began to move towards me in unison. It terrified me to be honest.

"Take us with you." They said over and over. I was strong but not even I could pull from their grasp.

"I can't take you all, how would it even be possible?" I stammered as I kept trying to pull free.

"A stone..." The crowd grew silent and parted for a single soul.

"Take us with you as a philosophers stone." The soul walked towards me and handed me a piece of parchment.

"Everything you need to know is on that parchment."

I looked at that scroll and hesitated. "Tell me... why do you want to leave Paradise?" I asked the people that stood before me. Some couldn't give an answer, but I gave a simple one.

"Why do you?"

That stopped me in my tracks. "Because this house is no home, I want to find home..."

"Then your reason." The soul that had given me the parchment slapped a hand onto my shoulder. "Is the same as ours."

I took a moment to let the situation sink in and then it was decided.

"Alright..." I looked back down at the little girl that still was holding onto my leg. "I'll take you with me."

It took less than an hour to gather all the souls that wanted to leave. The ocean of them that they were. It took only a moment to make the circle. I looked up at all those souls with smiles on their faces, they were ready for what would come next.

As the transmutation began there were no cries of gasping for breath. These were souls in a solid shape, they all vanished as an eye opened up across Paradise and took me in. It broke me apart and poured the Truth as a whole into my head. I blacked out.

I woke up back at the center of the circle lieing on my chest which had a large bump on it over where my heart was. I pulled off my shirt to see a blood-red diamond cut into the shape of a heart embedded in my chest.

Then I heard them, all of them talking at the same time. It took me a moment to grasp what I had done. What they had let me do to them.

Without a word I got up and walked to the edge of Paradise where him/her/it(#14) watched me walk away.

And I just kept walking... right off the edge.

I feel down past the clouds, past the shine off the gates, and then I feel into nothing. All there was, was black nothing. I floated and fell at the same time, for the longest time I just sorted through and talked to all the people that came with me. It was easier that way, talking helped time pass. Then we ran out of things to say, and we still had not reached a destination.

We grew quiet and fell back into the oldest habit we all had.

We waited...

That void consumed us, we became apart of it and it us. My body didn't decay or even age, it simply existed, disconnected from the soul and mind that drove it.

Then the miracle happened.

It was another moment like any other in the Void when we heard it, when we felt it. A laugh, a smile, the feeling of love.

For the first time in forever I could see something besides nothing. I saw a women, she was giving birth. She knew she was going to die, and live? She carried a child. Something that she wasn't. A man stood next to her holding her hand. Then something happened to the women. Her body changed into a small baby, the only thing that stayed the same was that pink stone embedded in her stomach. It carried from her to her child.

I saw Death (#14), black veil and all, waiting for her soul, but it never came. The women may have died but she still lived on through her impossible child. With a small smile she looked down at the man holding his child and then up at me. She knew I was there and then she was gone.

I opened my eyes up again once the memory ended. Others poured in but they came easy. I wasn't lost anymore.

"Now you understand why I exist..." Another Last said walking into my field of view. "to make sure there is another day until the last. To find a home..."

With all these memories restored, I somehow feel more at ease then I did before.

"Maybe now the cycle will end?" I asked myself and he nodded.

"This is the only life we get, let's make it last.." He offered me a hand and pulled me to my feet. When I was standing solidly on my feet they were nearly pulled out from under me as he pulled me into an embrace.

"No more halves, no more forever searching, no more forever waiting..."

I felt in that imbrace the sensation that something I had lost long ago was once again apart of me. When I opened my eyes, he was gone.

The world around me changed when it happened. The sky turned blue and a few clouds formed. The ground beneath my feet grew hilly and grass sprang up. The last thing to happen was that all of the people that had been inside the stone were now around me smiling.

The same little girl from so long as pulled on my pant leg again and told me something I was already prepared to do.

"You need to wake up."

And now I wake to a whole new whole...


	13. Then, Now, and Later

1 year after returning from Alfheim...

Steven and Pearl walk into Lapis's room in the temple to check on her.

"Any change?" Pearl asked already knowing the answer.

"More books..." Lapis said raising two more books to add to the massive pile that was stacked next to the bed.

"They just keep showing up. Any ideas?" Lapis asked Pearl.

"Hmm, it could be that some of the knowledge inside of Last has begun to leak out in the form of books. Something akin to my projections, all except they hold knowledge. I mean look at these..." Pearl says pulling a book off the top, reading its name and grabbing the next. "'Intro to Alchemy', 'Medical Ninjutsu', 'A message...'..." Pearl stopped on the last one and opened it.

It was a rather thick book, but other than the title the book only had a single sentence.

'Do you still remember the first sunrise?'

The room was silent.

"Even in a coma, you still manage to flirt with your girlfriend." Pearl said with a sad smile.

(To the day he wakes up...)

*First things first, in this time, you must assume all the events of Steven Universe up until 'Back to the Barn' have come to pass, with the exception that you must imagine Lapis is with the crystal gems. Peridot still came to check on the Cluster, Jasper is currently KO'd in a gem bubble. And FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, I WANT THE CENTIPEDDLE BACK!*

Time and time again people came to 'check on Last', but she knew by this point that they were mostly checking on her at this point. The book that held the only message she had gotten from Last in three years never left her hands.

Then, out of the blue she thought she had seen Last twitch a finger. She had many false alarms before, she didn't get her hopes up.

Those hopes however broke the ceiling and took flight when he took in a deep breath and began to move. After a moment his eyes fluttered open. Lapis honestly didn't know what to do. Leave and get the others, or stay while he woke up. It was decided for her when Last weakly called out for her.

In an instant she dropped the book from her hands, which was now filled with endless writing. She held on to him, willing him not to fall back to sleep.

He looked at her with happy eyes. "I remember you..." He placed a hand to her face and was immediatly cut off by a heated kiss.

*I'm going to skip ahead because the general area around the temple shook for a few days and nobody was able to get into Lapis's room for... reasons. (Use your imagination and guess what went on in there.)*

"Amethyst what are you doing?" Pearl asks Amethyst who is holding a large amount of explosives with a crazed look in her eyes.

"I'm gonna blast a hole into Lapis's room and find out what's making the ground shake. I've lost 3 sandwiches and I can't sleep with the ground shaking!" Amethyst on the verge of madness while pulling at her own hair.

Then the shaking suddenly stops...

"There, it's stopped..." Pearl gets cut off by the temple door opening to Last walking out of the Temple very slowly with Lapis.

"Easy does it, you shouldn't be moving to much until your muscles rebuild themselves." Lapis said while putting him on the couch.

"That's not the attitude you've had since I woke up." Last said in a somewhat tired manner. Lapis blushed and looked away.

"Well, you were out of it for three years and then there was the 6,000 years before that in the mirror..." Lapis trails off unwilling to finish her thought. Last took her by the hand.

"That won't happen again, I promise." Last says in a voice that seems to imply he'd move the universe or die trying to keep that promise.

"Hey guys, how's Lapi..." Stevonnie stops just short of finishing her sentence when she sees an awake Last and a smiling Lapis sitting on the couch together.

"Last?" Stevonnie asks and Last turns his head to her with a knowing smile.

"How long have you two been fused?" Last asks suddenly taking great interest in a heavily blushing Stevonnie.

"Well, umm... three weeks..." Stevonnie said as quietly as she could. Last was grinning and so was Garnet at the thought of them being a fusion for such an extended period of time.

"I knew it, ever since you two fused back in Alfheim. It got more and more difficult to be seperate people. The sensation of comfort, the feeling that you've got someone you love always with you." Last rose from the couch and walked to Stevonnie and took her hands.

"You are something remarkable..." Last said to Stevonnie. "Made up of two extraordinary people." Last brought Stevonnie into an embrace.

"So, you remember me? Us?" Stevonnie asked gesturing to the other people in the room. Last nodded.

"Yes, and I remember much more now." Last raised a single finger.

"But, there's one thing I still need back."

"And what is tha..." Stevonnie was cut off by Last placing his forehead to Stevonnie's forehead. With a rush of energy, thin wisps of white vapor passed from Stevonnie to Last. In Stevonnie's mind, she was reliving being hurled through Truth from both Connie and Steven's perspective and the knowledge they recieved.

An indeterminable amount of time passed before the memory ended and Stevonnie came back to reality.

"There... all that knowledge that I gave you is now mine once more." Last said pulling away to walk back to the couch.

"But I can still remember it all!" Stevonnie said in a somewhat exclaiming way. Last stopped walking and turned his head slightly back towards her.

"Is there a problem with that?" Last asked.

Stevonnie rapidly shook her her.

"No no no, it's fine. I just thought that I would forget if you ever took it back." Stevonnie said.

"I make this simple, I only needed the knowledge. So I just relearned it all from the memory." Last sat back down next to Lapis and the next for minutes were filled with small talk and pleasentries.

"LAST?!" The temple door abruptly opens and Gabriel pokes his head out to look and then ran out as the door shut behind him.

"Thank One! You finally woke up!" Gabriel gave his brother a hug before pulling him by the hand back to the temple door.

"You really need to see this!" Gabriel emphasized as the door re-opened at Gabriel's nearing. Inside of Rose's room there was, among the many pink and fluffy clouds, were many dozens, maybe even hundreds of gems in various states of being. Some appeared to have been put away from the others, all alone, seperate from anyone else. Even from each other.

The moment Gabriel released Last's arm he was off.

"What did you do to them!" Last shouts at Gabriel in a very aggitated voice.

"They were dangerous, they could have hurt others. They need to be locked up!" Gabriel tried to explain, it only server to further infuriate Last.

"Dangerous? Hurt others?" Last walks back to Gabriel, grabs him by the neck, and lifts him from the ground.

"We're dangerous! We could kill the universe if we lose control. Do we need to be locked away? They're scared, alone. Put anyone in their position and they would be the same! They can hurt people? WE WOULD KILL THEM! You've been one of us long enough to know this burden. Our existence, what we feel, affects the universe around us. We can never lose control, get angry, scared. The only difference between us and them is that we can do far worse."

Last threw Gabriel in no particular direc...

Wait what happened? *Quickly looks around.* Come on! You had to throw your brother at the 4th Wall didn't you?

Sorry people, be back when I can mop up Gabriel and repair this hole in the 4th Wall.


	14. To heal that which is broken

'Hold up, almost done.' *Puts one more piece of duct tape on the broken piece of the 4th wall.*

'There we go...' *Que piece of the 4th wall falling off.*

'Close enough! Now then...' *pushes imaginary button.*

'Let's get this story back on track, maybe add some vibranium to the 4th wall around this story while I'm at it.'

*TIME RESTART!*

(Let's just say everyone thinks that Gabriel got throw out of Rose's room. Well he did but, you know what I mean. So I put him on the couch out cold!)

"Now then, let's do what Gabriel was supposed to be doing with these gems in here." Last said as he attempted to get his emotions back under control and a few of the clouds around him swirled violently and turned rather red before floating away and turning back to pink.

Last walked to the cages of all of those 'dangerous' gems, he approached a small cage in which its occupant was hiding in the darkest corner of its cell. Last sliped a hand through the bars palm up and froze. For the longest time absolutely no one in the surrounding area moved or made a sound.

Then, there was the slightest movement, if you hadn't been watching closely you would have thought you imagined it. A hand came out of the darkness and put itself on the ground, then another came out and did the same. Listening closely you could make out the soft movement of fabric and the shifting positions of a small body.

Out of the corner emerged a little girl, or at the very least a gem that looked like a little girl. She crawled slowly towards Last's outstretched hand constantly stopping and holding still for a moment before continuing forward. When she reached Last's hand she was completely fidgety, but she eventually reached out her hands and put them into Last's hand. Last closed his hand very slowly, so slow that it would have taken a time-lapse to see it move at all.

At this point many gems had either settled into watch the show or, gems like Stevonnie, went elsewhere to do other things.

THEN, once Last had his hand closed around the small gem's, there was a flash of movement and Last had pulled the small gem into an embrace. The small gem began to seriously panic as soon as she realized something she didn't had happened. She begun to repeatedly sink her teeth into Last to try and make him release.

This continued on for a few minutes before she stopped, whether she realized that it wasn't working or if she simply got tired isn't important. What is important is the fact that somewhere in her struggle to get free from Last, the front of the cage had vanished.

Last pulled the now still girl into his lap and rocked her. It was somewhere around this point that this scared little girl realized that this was an attempt at comforting her. Her body loosened and her fear of Last slowly faded. Last long ago let go of her hands in favor of holding her in a cradling manner so the small gem could calm herself.

An overwhelming sensation of comfort came from Last, everything from his expression to his posture simply screamed 'YOU ARE SAFE!' When the last tinge of fear left her she raised again her hands, this time only heistating for a moment before grabbing hold of Last. If you could have heard anything over the sound of crying coming from her, it would have been the sound of several ribs cracking and then mending.

She cried for a long time, crying out years of pain, years of being alone, years of being afraid. When at last her tears subsided her grib loosened and she feel asleep for the first time in her life.

Last rose from his sitting position and walked towards nowhere. A door appeared without a sound and Last walked through but the door remained. On the other side of the door the was a simple bed with all of the basic things you would expect to be on a bed. Last placed the little girl onto the bed and was about to leave when the girl's grip unconsciously tightened onto Last and he paused.

A chair rose from the ground next to the bed and Last sat on it, never letting go of the little girl. Last leaned somewhat onto the bed and stayed like that.

Last fell asleep holding the hand of a little girl that had never been shown compassion.

'Alright, I think we're good.' *Looks at the 4th wall now heavily plated with metal.* 'Now I can get back to writi...' *Runs back to the wall and looks through.* 'I FORGOT TO KEEP WATCHING!' *Slams fist against 4th wall and a small piece wall out.* 'Screw it...' *Walks back to desk.* 'I need to get back to work.' *Throws the imaginary button over shoulder and doesn't hear it hit but ignores it.*

(It went through the hole, but don't tell the author!)


	15. A Dream of Paradise

"It's not Hell you wake to..." The words stirred the small girl from a momentary rest and she opened her eyes to a warm sunny day.

"But Paradise." The girl bolted up and looked around for the source of the voice. Sitting in a chair next to her bed was Last. She shyed away from him, but didn't run.

"Where are we?" She asked with fright. Last responded with a small smile.

"A place far away and right here. A place where no one has to be afraid. A place where no one dies. This..." Last stands from his chair and gestures in an all encompasing manner.

"Is Paradise! Or at the very least, a very small fraction of it. This is the place I find the most peaceful."

Looking around for a moment the girl sees something out in the distance, she points to it.

"What's that?" Last turned to look in the direction she was pointing. There, like a blemish on the face of Paradise was a single large daark cloud. It drew no closer, but it didn't move away either. From it came the sensation of endless sorrow.

"What I fear..." Last takes the girl by the hand and helps her off the bed.

"Let's not go to there okay?" The little girl nods slowly.

"Okay." Off they walk away from the cloud, but no matter the amount of time they walk, it remains the same distance from them.

"We've been walking for awhile. how about you tell me about yourself to help make time pass faster?" Last looks over his shoulder at the dark cloud that followed him.

"Well... my name is Topaz, I was created at a kindergarten, like all gems."

The scenery around them changes to that of a lush tropical place, they break through the brush to see a dead mountain split down the middle. Like ghosts, many gems appeared out in the kindergarten. All of them young, freshly made. The machines busy with their tasks, paid the children that played under them no hed, as if they could.

"Then the ships came to take us all away..."

Ships land as if on que and begin to grab up the new gems.

"There was panic, some tried to fight, it wasn't pretty."

Small gems fought those that had come to take them away. So of those collectors didn't care to fight them and simply stabbed them with a distablizer to break apart their form and bubble them. Those that were not so lucky were forced to fight with gems more then 10 times their size and they somply got beat into the ground until they went 'poof'.

"I was one of the last to be collected, I went without a fight, I was too afraid to fight. But..."

The scene appears to their side as they walk by. The collector picks her up by the arm and in a moment of fright, Topaz bit into the collectors arm.

"It did not end so well either." The collector pried Topaz from her arm and a good chunk of that forearm came with Topaz.

"FUCK!" The collector took out her destablizer and stabbed it deep into Topaz, she fell apart and the scene goes black.

"The next thing I knew, I was here." The prison that Lapis broke out of snaps into view.

"I was here for forever..." Topaz begin to cry as she stops in front of her old cell and looks inside to see herself sitting in a corner. The sun and the moon race by on the world above.

"Then..." The sun and moon stop dead in their tracks, only the moon was present over this part of the world. The prison shook and all the cell doors blasted from their hinges.

"She took us away from here." Lapis moves all the imprisoned gems to Beach City.

"And that's right up till I saw you on the beach." The scene snaps to a hazy scene of Last walking among all the half conscious gems.

"Welcome, to your new home."

The scene fades into black and returns to the grassy plain and Last stops walking and pull Topaz into an embrace.

"Enough of that, you've shown me what pains you so greatly." Last pulls Topaz onto his shoulders and turns back towards the dark cloud.

"Maybe it's time to show someone mine."

When they reach the edge of the cloud, the world around seems to lose its color, the sun loses its warmth, and the air files with ash. At the edge of the clouds shadow the grass stops, underneath that shadow all live is dead. The sound of heavy sobbing hangs in the air.

With another step they were under it and they were not solid people anymore, they were lights in the dark.

"Don't let go..." Last's voiced broke at the very first word, but still he walked until he reached... himself?

"This is my nightmare, why I don't like to sleep."

In front of Last was himself fallen to the ground holding onto a dead Lapis. Zooming far out, you could see the image of wings was burned into the groud from one edge of the shadow to the other.

"I fear that someday I won't be able to save her. And then I'll never find her again. For all the power I have I fear I'll fail when I'm needed most. All of them..." Last turned to looked back the way they had come and he could not see the edge. All around was an endless pile of dead people, on a dead world.

The world vanishes around Topaz and she is suddenly back on the bed, with a crying Last sitting next to her with his head in his hands.

Topaz moved to the edge of the soft bed and hugged Last. He stiffened for a moment before relaxing.

"Thank you..."

For a long moment it stayed like this. Then Last rose from the chair and helped Topaz down off the bed. Walking forward the bed and chair vanish and the door appears again. It opens up back inside of Rose's room. The other's come quickly to see them.

"It looks like you've been busy..." Last said looking around at all the gems talking and acting relatively calm and friendly to one another.

"After you locked yourself in your room. Stevonnie took it upon herself to free all the gems in those cages. With our help of course." Pearl says as she reaches us.

"Where is she anyway?" Last asks looking around. Pearl looks back over at the crowd of gems.

"Somewhere in there, helping to mend the scared gems that Lapis freed."

"What now?" Topaz asks coming out from behind Last's leg.

"Now? Now we finish what we came in here to do."

Last puts Topaz on his shoulders and walks towards the crowd.

"Let's do this..."


	16. Progress

"To reach a port we must set sail" –Franklin D. Roosevelt

It took much time to sort through the minds and emotions of all the gems. Those that were of fair condition mentally and physically were allowed to leave Rose's room and walk around Beach City under the condition they were supervised by one of the crystal gems.

Pearl and Amethyst offered to do so just to have a good reason to be able to leave the room and the depressing sight of so many broken gems. Garnet stayed to help in anyway she could to repair and heal those that she could. When she began to realize that she couldn't do much she began to break.

"Why can't I help these gems?!" On the verge of tears, Last saw her and left, for a moment, the gem he was helping in the hands of Stevonnie whom he had taught the basics of telepathy. She was an incredibly fast learner.

"Can't Garnet?" Last walked slowly to Garnet and stood face to face with her.

"You've done as much as I have to help these gems, if not more!" Garnet looks up.

"And how have I done that?" Last smiled a knowing smile.

"Don't think I haven't noticed how these gems act around you. They act calmer, they FEEL more put together with you around. You being here is what even allows me to START to rebuild these gems. How long have you been sneaking in here?"

Garnet stood dumbfounded for a moment.

"Since we got back from Alfheim. I thought I could find the answer that would help these gems."

"And you did it! You're the answer that allowed any of this to happen. So, that being said." Last took hold of both of Garnet's hand and put his forehead to her's.

For a moment nothing happened, then there was a spark.

'I don't get it what is he doing?'

'Just be patient Ruby, we'll see.'

"Yes... You will." Last spoke out loud to try and avoid scaring her badly.

Her eyes grew wide for a moment.

"You can hear Ruby and Saphire?" Last nodded.

"Not from a distance, you're the voice I hear when I turn my attention to you. I have to have direct contact to hear absolutely everything. But that's not why I'm doing this."

Last put his forehead back to Garnet's and took a deep breath and time stopped around them.

Inside of mind, we find both Garnet and Last sitting beneath The Weapon.

"Follow me, this isn't needed for what I want to gift to you." Last walked to a door that appeared from nowhere and opened it. On the other side was Rose's room exactly how it looked when time stopped.

"I want to gift you the power you want, you want to heal those that are damaged of mind, not body, a noble endeavor." Last looked towards the sky (I don't think there is a technical 'ceiling' to Rose's room). His feet lifted from the ground as he flew up and out of view.

"Where are you going?" Garnet shouted up at him.

"You'll see..." Last's voice seemed to come from everywhere and the room shook every so slightly under its power.

A moment past and the clouds were, quite violently, blasted away from Garnet. Leaving her able to see far above her Last doing something. There was the sound of fracturing, the strain of two forces trying to break one another, then the sky opened up above Garnet and out poured everything.

A wave of endless power crashed into Garnet and dug into her, down to Ruby and Saphire. None escaped the power. When it had poured into every seam and crack in her being it began to change her in the slightest ways. Nothing on the outside, stronger skin here, vast strength there. It changed her on the inside.

'Enough.' A quiet thought came from nowhere, and the power left her be and returned to its crack before it sealed itself once more. Last landed immediately after and picked up Garnet.

'Did it work?' Last thought quietly to himself.

"Did what work?" Garnet said as she came back to her senses.

Last cracked a grin and helped Garnet back to her feet.

'Look at my mouth...' Garnet looked at Last's mouth and to her surprise she heard his voice but his lips didn't move.

"You mean," Garnet took a moment to take in what was happening.

"I can hear everyones thoughts now?" Garnet asked quietly.

"That's what we know so far." Last helps Garnet walk back to the door they had come through and shuts it behind them while Garnet figures out how to walk properly again. The door fades into Oblivion the moment it shuts.

Last takes up a stone and throws it at Garnet with a sonic boom quick to follow.

"Think fast."

Garnet didn't move, all that new power sprang into action before the stone left his hand. In the brief moment after the stone broke the sound barrier it was met with an unseen force that forced it to slow, then to stop altogether.

"Very good, no hesitation at all. If I didn't know better I'd have to say you were made with that in you. Your body took the process very well."

"Just what did you do to me? What was that substance you put me into to do this to me."

Last let out a sigh.

"Always the one that needs to know everything. I suppose you get that from Sapphire. It was no substance that engulfed you, I broke a section of reality and exposed raw infinite power. Giving even a small drop of infinite power any direction is difficult, so I used the sky to drop it on you. When it had done all it could without causing issues I forced it back and reality healed."

"The universe is a living entity, and you made it bleed on me so I could get stronger." Garnet said with a mix of shock and mild disgust at the idea.

"'Stronger' is such a weak term for it, even the smallest drop of infinity is still infinity. You're much closer to my family in terms of strength and ability then anyone else in existence now.

There is only one tier of strength above us and it belongs to the Void. We were born in the Void, all but Gabriel, we saved him from Death and made him like us, though his brush with Death and what he has become obviously hasn't changed who he is mentally."

"Made him? How?" Garnet's interest peaks and she inquires.

"The Weapon." Last turns to look at the collosal floating structure.

"It doesn't just have to be used to destroy, we can use it to save, to rebuild. All it takes is people with the strength to use it. We all took a liking to Gabriel when he was still an angel, he never took anything to seriously, he was the life of the party. He made Paradise a place worth staying in, for awhile that is. He nearly died, I can't remember the reason or what had happened. We took a vote and brought him back like us. He left Paradise after that, wanted to see what else was out here. The first of us to fall and we followed, eventually."

Last stood quick as a flash.

"Enough of these dark memories. Let's get back to reality."

With a snap of his fingers they were consumed by darkness and time resumed. Once more they stood in front of each other. Last pulled away with fingers bright red and steaming.

"Now let's make some progress, set sail for better days."


	17. To The Moon

Weeks pass. Gems are healed and it's rather peaceful in Beach City. Only one thing sours this peaceful time.

The Cluster.

Peridot long ago revealed what the Cluster was and devised a plan to stop it, or at least get to it.

The drill was built in record time, with Last and Lapis constantly flying around to gather the materials needed. Or when it was easier, get them via alchemy.

Peridot and Pearl had just put the final welds in and stood back to admire their work.

"Looking good isn't it?" Pearl asked Peridot in a moderatly boastful tone.

Peridot examed the drill for any form of flaw or defect. Standing back again she lets off a soft smile.

"Ya, we did good." Peridot lets the smile drop from her face as a thought surfaces.

"We still don't know the Cluster's cordinates." Pearl lets her smile drop as well.

"Yes, that is a problem. Seeing as we can't just find it with telepathy since we only hear for about a mile around ourselves, we can't hear the entire planet. Too much to sort through."

"Why not try the moon base?" Peridot suggested.

"It would most likely have the location of the Cluster."

Pearl looked at her with a bit of a shocked expression.

"You mean to tell me that there's a base, ON THE MOON!"

Peridot just gave her the same look she always wears.

"Yes. It was setup when Earth was still a colony, meant to be central command for the whole operation."

"Hey guys," Stevonnie walks up to the building duo after hearing Pearl shout her head off.

"What's going on with you two?"

It's been months, maybe years since the last time Steven and Connie split apart, with training from Garnet and a rather relaxing environment, they haven't needed to split or fallen apart on their own in quite some time.

Pearl lite up at the sight of the perma-fusion.

"Oh, Stevonnie! It's nothing really, me and Peridot were trying to figure a way to get up to the moon. There's an old base up there that might have some information on the Cluster that we need in order to find it."

"Why not Lion? He can do those 'rawr-holes'."

"Carrying so many people would most likely overstrain him. We can just fly up there and take you with us. It's much easier that way."

Stevonnie thought this over for a brief moment and nodded.

"You and your kin are the most peculiar lifeforms i've observed to date." Peridot says with an inspecting glare.

"You're supposedly the most powerful beings in the universe, and your 'birth' also predates the universe by a significant margin at that. Why spend any length of time on a planet like this? And why are there no records of you in the Homeworld databanks. I'm sure with a lifespan that long, gemkind would have encountered you at one point or another."

"On the first point." Pearl lifts a single finger into the air.

"We have never once stated we are the strongest, or the most powerful for that matter. We know there are a few things that are our equal or our better. The Void being the best example, a place capable of creating us. I'm sure if it actually had the desire, it would wipe all of existence away. I'm not even sure why it decided to make us. Onto the second point.

We spend time here for many of the same reasons you want to stop the Cluster, we see the potential of all things, the place has so much potential. Besides, it's also very beautiful. There are very few places in the universe that have such a setup and do it so well. We love this world, but maybe not those apes that roam its surface."

"HEY!" Stevonnie interjects. "There's a 3/4's 'ape' standing right here!"

"You don't count into that statement. And Connie may have been human, but she was one of its finest. So much potential, and the will to see it through."

Stevonnie blushes a little at the remark.

"Well umm, thanks?"

"On the last point, we've been in contact with gem kind since it's inception. Just as a piece of it, not something foreign. Look at Lapis and me. We are still gems to a fault, waking up didn't change that. We did, however, get all these extra little tid-bits of knowledge and power from the beings we once were."

"Always the one that over explains, no matter who you are. Some things about us never change."

Last walked up holding hands with Lapis.

"So... the moon?" Lapis asked quietly.

"Yep." Said Stevonnie, Peridot, and Pearl.

"Well then, everyone with wings, grab someone that doesn't and let's ofh!" Last gets cut off at the end by Amethyst jumping on his back and crawling up to sit on his neck.

"Well , LET'S RIDE!" Amethyst pulls on Last's hair and forces him to let go of Lapis's hand and try and grab her before they both vanish with the sound of wings flapping.

"HEY! THE ONLY ONE THAT GETS TO PULL HIS HAIR IS ME!" Lapis grabs hold of Peridot and Stevonnie before vanishing after them.

In the momentary silence Pearl quickly fetched Garnet.

"Looks like you're coming with me, we may have to make a detour, or two." Pearl, sporting a very lewd look on her face, vanishes with Garnet in her arms.


	18. Why They Fear Us

**I decided something today. Time to catch a glimpse of the Rule. (Props to whoever knows what that is.)**

With a crash and a burn, we find Last and Amethyst sliding across a large platform under a clear blue sky. Stopping when they hit a tall pillar that seemed to stretch miles into the sky.

"WOOO" Amethyst says with eyes spinning comically. "That was AWESOME! Let's do it again!"

Last stood up and brushed some imaginary dust off himself. He paused, picking his head up and looking around he's shocked by where they are.

"Amethyst..." Last turned to her with a serious look.

"Ya ?"

"How did we get here?"

"I don't know, all I know is I hitched a ride on the best ride ever!"

Turning around to look at the pillar, Last's eyes widen and he falls to his knees. Clutching onto his blood red gem.

"Oh..." A few tears escape his eyes. "We're here...so many lives...so much sadness..."

"Last?..." Amethyst looks around then back at him.

"What's wro..."

Quicker than a flash Last was back on his feet and already at Amethyst. Grabbing her and putting her over his shoulder, there was the sound of immense wings moving and powerful wind flowed from where they were just a moment ago.

Now on the Moon, we find everyone there.

"I don't get it, he was the first to lea..." Pearl is cut short by Last appearing and ramming himself into the wall after throwing Amethyst off his shoulder.

"NEVER(punches the wall and restores it at the same time)AGAIN(punch!)" Last collapes into a heap in the corner of the room and starts to squirm under the weight of some dark memories..

"Last?!" Lapis took one step before Garnet put a hand on her shoulder.

"I'll go talk to him." Garnet walked to Last. With all of her new power it only took a moment to understand it all. Garnet powered up one of her gautlets and smacked Last across the face to pull him from his thoughts.

"Now is not the time to have a mental breakdown." Garnet said in her normal calm voice.

For whatever reason, this managed to get through to Last, as did Garnet's mind pierce his. Standing up and pulling himself back together, he let's out a heavy sigh.

"Thanks, I kinda needed that." Last followed Garnet back to the group.

"Umm, what was that about?" Stevonnie asked unsure if she wanted the answer.

"That's a matter for another time." Garnet said calmly. "We should get going, I had to block some very dark memories to even get him to stand up. And the block won't last long on him."

With everyone walking, every so often someone would have to make sure Stevonnie was still with them and if not, pull the floating moon girl up the stairs. Garnet pauses for a moment before walking quickly ahead. They catch up to see Garnet standing next to the diamonds chair.

"Well, here we are, Gem control." Peridot and Stevonnie took up sitting in the seat reserved for diamonds after a brief talk.

"Alright, now let's determine the location of the Cluster."

Peridot scans through the system looking for the location of the Cluster.

(Time skip, because I'm lazy.)

After discovering the location of the Cluster and showing the others what Earth would have looked like if it had remained a colony. Peridot scanned once more for any addiotional information. She stopped her browsing when she came across an odd file.

"This is odd, why would the diamonds have a file on a 'Species Unknown?'" Peridot navigated to the file and opened it. The entire system shut down for 6.3 seconds.

"Umm, what just happened?" Pearl asked in complete surprise.

"I don't know it just..." Peridot is again cut off. The display begins to emit an almost static-screaming noise.

"Greetings my Diamond..." A peridot appears in the display appearing to be some form of researcher.

"The creature took 25 stellar cycles to be subdued by the combinded forces of all remaining diamonds. We sustained massive casualties. Estimates are that enough gems were shatter in the onslaught to build 10000 geo-weapons."

This report was beginning to peak the interest of all involved.

"From the little we have managed to scrap from it, we have already learned we must keep it perpetually unconscious. The results of it waking up the first time was not desirable."

The video cuts out and a new one is displayed.

"Log date 1-8-6: Composition testing has concluded that the creature is in fact organic. Further testing concluded that its genetic structure indicates that its body was manufactured in some manner, though there is nothing that indicates its intended function. Further study is required."

Another cut out and another video file plays.

"Log date unknown" The video is hazy this time and the peridot appears to be scared and in a rush.

"The creature, we didn't know. If we had we would have devised a system to counter it... the creature, unknown to us, appears to have telepathic and telekinetic ability. It is unknown if it has recently developed these abilities or if it simply chose not to use them till now. It took control of the research center. No one has been able to move around the base. It appears its..."

The video goes static for a moment before clearing, the peridots eyes were pure white. Remaining silent for a solid 30 seconds, she began to speak in a voice that wasn't hers. One that radiated age and darkness.

"Now I see, so you tried to make me your puppet, a test subject for your sick experiments. Normally, I would see to it that I wipe your race from this universe. But I have more pressing matters to attend to. And I must say..." The peridot smiles the most devilish smile imaginable.

"I enjoyed playing with your armies. they were oh so easy to break. Out of curiousity, I allowed for my capture. Allowed you to believe that you have me contained. Just to learn all I could from you... I didn't learn much.

Now, judging from your collective memories, this recording is being sent to blue diamond. So I will say this before I break all these worthless things. Hope I never come back, because next time, next time I won't let you win. I've wasted enough time and breath on you. Good Day, you giant blue Clod."

The video last 6 more seconds. The peridot on screen begins to scream and fall apart as an unseen force crushes her and her gem into dust.

"Enough..." Last said with a low growl topped with a hint of finality and the screen vanished.

"What the hell!" Peridot taps a few button but to no avail.

"This is why they fear him, they have seen how easily he wiped their armies out. If they found out there were more. They would propably try to hunt us. Leash us and make us into weapons like they tried to do to Nostae Imori. They will not cage us, we will not be ruled!"

Without warning the room around began to shake violently, the walls and glass began to crack and air began to leak out into the vaccum of space.

"EVERYONE OUT NO..." Garnet was cut off as the room itself finally gave way and they were left exposed to the vaccum of space.

Lapis grabbed hold off as many people as she could before a slight ripple in the vaccum appeared right where they had been a moment before. Back on Earth, Lapis crashes into the beach and Pearl appears a moment later.

"You really need to work on your landings." Pearl said walking over to pull Garnet to her feet.

"Fine, how about you carry everyone next time and I'll be the ass that says 'work on your landings'!" Lapis shouts angrily as she picks herself up out of the sand. "Everyone here?"

"Everyone's here." Garnet reassures Lapis. "Except for Last."

Everyone looks up at the moon to see small crater with a glow at its center. A moment later the crater seemed to grow.

"Man, he's really pissed off!" Amethyst says in her usual loud voice.

"You can feel it all the way down her." Stevonnie says quietly. "I can almost hear him just screaming his heart out up there."

"Come on." Lapis touches Stevonnie's shoulder. "Let's make sure there's a planet here when he calms down."

Stevonnie nods knowingly. "Alright, let's go take out the Cluster."

Everyone hurries over to the barn where Peridot begins to program the cordinates into drill.

Within moments they were ready.

"Everyone on!" Peridot said activating the drill. Everyone dove on as it dug down into the Earth.


	19. The Cluster and an unexpected solution

Far into the Earth the drill dug.

"Umm, how far down are we going?" Stevonnie asked.

"Ya Peridot, how far down?" Amethyst chimed in.

"A long ways down." Peridot stated as she adjusted their course and flipped a few switches.

Many minutes passed, if they hadn't made such a large pod on top of the drill the slow descent would have been even more maddening.

The drill came to a stop as they pierced into and looked into the immense cavern that was entirely taken up by the hulking mass of glowing gem shards beneath them.

"The Cluster..." Many of the gems looked at it with some mix of horror and sorrow on their face.

Lapis, however, was outside of the pod before anyone could even process the sound of wings flapping or the faint breeze the came with it.

It was not a massive fall down to the surface of the Cluster, the phantom limps of millions of gems reached up and enveloped her as she fell. She brought together her hands and reached out for it. Her fall slowed as she got closer and then stopped altogether just above. She was close though, there was still the smallest arcs of energy that past between her and it.

The phantom arms were driven off and she made full contact with its surface.

'I'll keep it from forming! Just figure out a way to stop this thing fast!' Lapis called out to them with telepathy as some part of her subconcious put forth some effort to making sure her body did not burn under the intense heat around her. The Cluster flashed and shook with its immense energy.

Peridot dropped the drill from its place of rest in the hole they dug to get down here. The drill slammed down into the Cluster and began to try and pierce its shell.

'AAAAAAAAAAAA...' All that could be felt or heard was a wave of silent screaming that tore at the minds of all that could hear it.

(On the moon)

Last paused for a moment from his rage. Even this far away he could hear the screams with the hole making an opening to hear from. This brought him back to a moment he wished he could forget, put it in a box and leace it behind.

(start)

The screams of endless people, mothers grieving over dead childrenm children crying over dead parents, and worst of all the two onlookers that did nothing to stop the horror of it all.

"I don't understand why you won't let me go down and help them!" Last shouted at his brother.

His brothers face never changing from its uncaring expression.

"All according to plan..." He said simply.

(end)

'Never again...' As he finished the thought we had already vanished. But not before a red glow radiated from the moon and in moments, it was as it had been before. The sole exception being the moon base was no longer there.

(Beach City/Temple)

The Earth shook and rolled under them. All of the gems that had been in the city rushed to the temple. Gabriel held the door open to the temple as they rushed in. When the final gem was in, Gabriel let the door close. Walking outside, he walked down to the sand. Taking a very purposeful stance, he spread his feet apart and planted them firmly into the sand. He put out his hands rather lowly with his palms up towards the sky. With the first twich of his hands there was a response.

"Better hurry up..."

Straining to raise his hands up somewhat there appeared a large crack the encircled both the town and the temple.

"I won't hold this up forever."

With one hard pull the town and the temple were pulled free from the Earth. A few pipes broke as the city was uprooted, but no liquid spilled forth from either piece. Nor did the ocean start to fill the empty space that was left in the absence of the town.

(At the Cluster)

Lapis pulled her hands from the Cluster without thought covering her ears. In an instant they were back when she realized what she had done but it had its cost.

For an instant the energy from the Cluster enveloped them all and seemed to reach out for them. The next scream came from Stevonnie. She fell apart under the strain. Connie came away free from the fusion with only the memory of the pain, but Steven wasn't so lucky. His body didn't move, but his mind did.

Once, just once, for all his curiosity, Steven asked Lapis if she knew what the inside of a philosophers stone felt like. "Hell, like the mirror but so much worse" was the only answer he ever recieved.

Now he knew why she had said that.

Inside the Cluster, floating among the endless bits and peices of broken gems minds, you understood it the moment you entered into their mindscape. The'd all surely gone mad from it all, there was never a quite moment, if it was not the maddening whispers that came from all around you in an neigh endless ocean of gems shards. It was the everlasting cries and half strung thoughts of broken gems innumeral.

Oddly enough, there was a moment, right when Steven could almost take no more that the noise seemed to quite. Even in madness these gems still understood that their cries hurt Steven.

Slowly, cautiously, Steven opened his eyes. He gasped, such a whirl of emotions washed over him at the sight of all these broken gems, there are no words to do it justice. Steven didn't know what to say to all these gems. So silence dragged on for a time longer...

(Back at the Drill)

Last appeared as he always did, in an instant. Falling to his knees he looked down and put his hands to the Cluster.

"Brother divine, what have they done to all of you?.." Last's voice cracked as he reached his very being out towards them.

"Last..." For the barest moment Last's focus shifted from the Cluster to Lapis before his attention returned to it.

"Look what those diamonds did to them. There must be a quardrillion voices screaming in here..." Last was pulled from those dark thoughts by Lapis having walked over and now placing a hand on his.

"Then let's help them..."

In an instant the sound of the drill ceased and the drill began to be pulled up and away from the Cluster.

'Leave...' Both Lapis and Last reached out in unison to those on the drill.

'We'll handle this.' The hole that the drill had opened up down to the Cluster began to close behind the drill as it entered.

"Now then." Lapis pulled Last to his feet and offered a hand. "Shall we?"

Last took the hand and they began to dance. With each step, the pull between them seemed to double. Their gems began to glow, and with a final dip their fusion began.

First their primary forms lost all individuality, then the heat of fusion burst forth. Not so hot this time, much more controlled. The fusion took a new shape, different from the shape it had so long ago on the beach. This fusion stood easily a dozen or more meters tall. Its form settled and it began to move, cracking most every crackable joint in its body, including both sets of arms, it took a deep breath and opened its eyes.

Looking down at the Cluster, that seemed to have stopped its attempts to form for the moment, the fusion's face had a sad look to it.

"Let's see what we can do..." The fusion closed its eyes and kneeled down on the surface and put a hand to it. In a moment it was inside.

Inside the Cluster the silence held strong with the drill no longer hurting the Cluster.

Finally, Steven felt the sensation of being touched. A shard had drifted to him and bumped into him. It only took him a moment to understand what it was trying to convey to him, what they were all trying to tell him, though they lacked the words to articulate all their pain and sorrow.

"You want to live..." Steven paused for a moment trying to understand what it all meant. "But you also want to die.."

The discord of voices started again, all shouting and trying to be heard.

"You want to live, but being like this is more painful than can be imagined."

The cries of sorrow and pain grew all the louder around him.

"But I have a friend that can help!" Steven shouted.

The drop-off in noise was sudden and absolute, suddenly the full attention of every single iota of the Cluster focused in on Steven.

"He's helped people before leave a place they didn't want to be in. He took them in and gave them a way to escape." Steven looked for a response.

The general mood of the Cluster changed from one of despair and sadness to one of hope. Endless excited whispers rose up. Steven's face, however, droped.

"But he's not here right now..." Steven and the Cluster both fell a little into despair at the thought.

"Then again..." Steven turned to the voice and the Cluster's attention shifted as well.

Our newest fusion floated there next to Steven. "Maybe he is." The fusion finished its thought and all the broken and shattered voices started talking and shouting once more. There in the discord you could hear the cries of joy and relief. They could finally be without this pain, they could finally live.

The oddest thing yet happened just then, some form of energy started to almost flow from the fusion. This energy looked all to similar to the hands the Cluster had made in its attempts to form only these hands turned to people. More and more poured out of the fusion. These people began to float off and away, still connected to the fusion by some string of energy. Every person that came out went to and held a gemshard close passing to them so form of message without words.

This continued until every single shard had someone holding it. It seemed to take years but it had only been minutes of real world time.

"Now..." The Cluster said in a broken unison as all the people began being pulled back, pulling with them all the shards. "We can live."

The pull grew stronger and all the shards and souls were pulled into the fusion at a mind boggling pace. Then it was over, and both Steven and the fusion floated through the nothing of the astral plain.

"Steven..." Steven snapped back to his senses and bolted up on the drill cockpit's floor. Both Pearl and Garnet were there to greet him as sunlight temporarily blinded him.

"Welcome back." Garnet started with. "And jugding by the fact that the Earth isn't breaking apart, I'd say you guys did something down there." Pearl finished the statement in time to feel the ground drop out from under them all for a moment.

"Oh, looks like Amethyst and the others finally told Gabriel he could drop the city now." Pearl said getting to her feet.

"Now then," Garnet started. "Where's the lovebirds?" Pearl interjected and finished Garnet's statement.

Garnet looked over at Pearl as she helped Steven to his feet. "That's getting..."

"Annoying?" Pearl cut her off with a sassy grin.

"Yes, yes it is." Garnet said.

Then there was another drop. "Ow!" Steven moaned. "What was that one?"

Pearl didn't even need to look outside to feel them. Quick as lightining bolt, Pearl grabbed hold off both Garnet and Steven.

"Wings are too slow!" In an instant their surroundings changed from the drill cockpit to the beach, where there is now a very large crater filling with water.

Pearl dropped the two of them off at the steps of the beach house before teleporting over to the crater to join Gabriel in the attempt to pull the fusion out of the crater it made.

Diving in was the only option, magic wasn't working and the water had already filled most of the crater. So in they went to drag it up. With great effort, they managed to bring it to the surface and drag it to the side.

When they managed to drag it out of the water, which was a great deal more difficult than it had to be since its body kept spasming and shaking, they tried to hold down all its limbs.

"What the hell did they do to themselves?" Gabriel asked in his sarcastic way that implied he somehow expected this.

"They took in the Cluster!" Steven shouted running up. This statment made everyone look absolutely shocked.

"Preposterous!" Peridot shouted as she ran up behind them.

"Do you realize how big the Cluster is? There's more than 6 quadrillion gems in it! You can't expect me to believe that that..." Peridot points to the fusion that's having something akin to a seizure. "Fusion is capable of doing anything close to absorbing that many gems!"

The fusion let out a eardrum-breaking scream that Steven thought sounded like the Cluster. The fusion's eyes burst open and both Gabriel and Pearl were thrown off by an unseen force. Crawling along the ground, in no direction inparticular, the fusion spoke in a voice that sounded as if endless voices were speaking all at once.

"Can't think...trying to...re..pair.." The fusion pulled itself into a tight ball and started screaming once more.

"Alright, I've had enough of this noise." Pearl says to herself before disappearing and showing up seconds later with a pair of sandles. Forcing the fusion to tip onto its side, Pearl enlarges to sandles to match the fusion's foot size and slips them on.

Almost instantly the screams quiet before going away entirely, the fusion stops curling up into a little ball and lets out a long deep breath before growing still.

"There, that's better." Pearl said with a satisfied look.

"What did you do P, how do sandles stop them from screaming?" Amethyst asked.

"Their not sandles, well they are, but their original owner was some peace guy that acheived some goal and ceased to exist for some reason. These sandles apparently stayed and now any human that wears them relaxes to the point that their heart's stop. But I'm fairly certain there's enough insanity happening to keep their heart beating because let's face it, this is by no means a human."

Laying down in the sand Pearl looked up at the sky.

"That's all for now folks... wait... aren't we forgeting something?"

Just then the fusion coughs up a gem that takes on the form of a small girl. She looked around until her eyes settled on Pearl.

"Momma?" The little girl runs over and latched onto her. Pearl hugs her apparent child.

"It's been a very long time, my little Jewel..."

"One down," Garnet said.

"Six quadrillion plus to go." Peridot finished.


	20. Alfheim Revisited

"Get ahold of the arms!"

"I'm trying, it's not easy with them STILL squirming around!"

"At least you guys got to grab something that doesn't kick *oof* you."

Hauling the fusion up the hill; Pearl, Stevonnie, Garnet, and Amethyst. None of which were to happy about it.

"Tell me Pearl, why are we dragging them to Alfheim again?" Amethyst asked in a rather annoyed tone, constantly being kicked can do that to you. Having to use her 'Purple Puma' form to even hold on was another reason.

"It's our best shot to help speed up whatever's happening inside them. Let's be glad that Last didn't do this alone, it's Lapis and her womens touch that made this work at all. Besides, we don't need Ronaldo trying anything on them, or the rest of the town coming around to snoop. Alfheim's the best choice right now. Especially with those sandles lossing their effectiveness of them."

Making it to the top of the hill, Pearl takes Jewel off her shoulders and sets her down on the ground.

"Alright little one, time for you to ride around on something else for a while."

From out of her gem, Pearl generated a small circular disk. The disk floated down and Jewel climbed on, only having enough room on the disk to sit. The disk rose once more and affixed itself in a relative position to Pearl.

"Wee!" Jewel laughed and giggled, this in turn brought a smile to their faces as well.

"Aww, hey P, who's the daddy?" Amethyst asked in her usual manner.

"Well you could be if you play your cards right." Pearl said with a sly look and a sly grin.

"Well, aaa, okay... nevermind..." Amethyst said and stuttered, blushing heavily while she tried to think of a way to change the subject. It didn't help that her 'Purple Puma' form was arguably masculine.

"So ummm...Alfheim?" Amethyst suggested.

"Alfheim." Garnet agreed, silently glad she wasn't having to fend off Pearl's advances for the moment.

"Oh Jewel, you're gonna love Alfheim. It's bright and pretty and so many nice people too!" Pearl happily talked to Jewel as she grabbed up the two arms on her side of the fusion.

When all of them had made it to the doorway Amethyst asked.

"So how do we stuff this GIANT through this time door?"

"Simple." Pearl said releasing the arms and walking to the mirror that connected the two worlds.

Raising on hand to Jewel, Jewel grabed hold of Pearl's finger.

"Everyone else, hold onto that fusion. This might get bumpy!" Pearl said reaching out towards the mirror.

A moment after everyone had grasped hold of the fusion, Pearl put a foot to the fusion and touched the mirror.

"And away we g..." The sound was cut off by their sudden absence, they had moved across the mirror.

Several seconds later, the group appeared on the other side. No worse for wear, but with a feeling of deep set pain.

"OWW!" Stevonnie howled. "That didn't happen last time!"

"Takes a bit longer to get reassembled if you have alot of baggage. Long enough for your body to realize it's in pieces."

"Then how come Jewel's not crying?" Stevonnie asked.

"Oh, that's right..." Pearl raised up a hand that was now missing a finger. No blood had ever dripped, so no one had even noticed.

"Moved her first, then us. Speaking of which..."

Pearl reached up to Jewel and put her hand in the same spot it had been, the finger and the hand touched and connected instantly, like it had never happened.

"Come on Jewel, let's go see the pretty city!" Pearl excitedly talked to Jewel in the standard way you talk to babies, like everything is magical and happy and every word sounds like you're talking to a puppy or kitten.

Pearl took the moment and took a deep breath and let it out. "You can really smell that magic! It's so potent here!"

With a snap of her fingers, the fusion lifted from the ground.

"Now we don't have to carry them the rest of the way, we can do..." With another snap of her fingers they moved. One instant, they stood at the door, the next they were at the mansion they had been at only once before.

"There we go! Some much easier when magic's this thick in the air!" Pearl let off a genuinely radiant smile. A pleasent sight, making Jewel giggle at her mother being so unreserved with her emotions.

Pearl kissed Jewel on the horehead, making her giggle even more.

"Alright everyone, let's go inside." Pearl said opening the door and letting everyone through before floating the fusion in.

"Alfie! We're here!" Pearl sang out in a rather musical tone as they came into the entrance hall of the mansion.

After several moments of silence, an elf darted out of one of the mansions many rooms on the second floor and into view. His clothes looked to have been rather hastily throw on. Unbeknownst to the guests that could not sense people, an elven woman was quickly getting dressed in the same room Alfie had emerged from. She lept out the open window and landed softly on the ground before her form shifted.

"Looks like they're here, best inform the others. They'll want to know that they can start."

An instant after she had finished her words she was gone.

Back with the others in the entrance hall, it seemed for a moment that Alfie would speak, but he stopped when he looked down to the fusion that his guests had dragged inside.

"Oh my..." Without another statement the elf lept over the railing and hit the ground running over to them.

"Why can't this old bastard ever stop when he's ahead?" Alfie muttered to himself as he placed his hands to the temples of the fusion.

The fusion's body grew limp and the elf gasped as he probed the outermost edges of the fusion's jagged and broken mind.

"How many..." Alfie asked quietly. "How many did they take in?"

"Approximately six quadrillion gems." Garnet stated.

Alfie's expression didn't change, he knew Last well enough to not to be surprised, or amazed with the quantity.

"Tell me..." Stevonnie took a step out of the small crowd. "Just tell me, can you help them?"

Alfie took a long look at the fusion that lay in front of him, with its head cradled in his lap.

"No, I doubt there is anyone that can. There's no structure left in there. Everything, every last wall and thought, ground to dust under the weight of it all. I can't tell you what will happen. When Last went into the coma, there was something left, some stone that his mind could rebuild on. There's... there's nothing left in here..." Alfie stopped mid-thought when he felt the surge of power, as did everyone.

No more walls were left to safegaurd all of the dark memories inside the fusion's collective head, to keep from prying eyes all that should not be seen. There was a moment where unseen hands, with all their raw endless power, set to work. The whole of reality around them rippled, the fabric of everything seemed to come apart and void appeared on the ceiling above. A brilliant blue-green fluid poured in through the opening.

Pearl and Garnet were the only two at the time that could sense the unseen hands that guided the flow. Somewhere far away, maybe in Alfheim, maybe on the other side of the tear, there was some of them. The 14 beings that had existed since before the first sunrise. There was no way to know how many were involved in this. Maybe two, maybe all the rest.

The fluid filled the room. A single touch had already told Pearl what this substance was.

"The Stone of Gelel..."

The floor had already been covered by it. Its very touch seemed to breath some life into the fusion, but it could only do so much with so much weight continually crushing their collective mind back down to dust. Stevonnie acted on impulse and reached out to try and keep the fusion's head above the glowing waves.

It all happened so fast after that, maybe it was those that had opened the tear trying to help, or maybe the spark of possibility that made Steven's birth possible finally flaring to life.

Birds hung came to a stop in the air outside, but time ran by at an inconcievable pace within the mansion's walls. All the gems were pulled towards the fusion, the moment they touched its skin the liquid surrounding them grew brighter still. There was nothing left but white light when the last hand touched its body.

Then... then they were standing in a quiet place, devoid of color, filled with nothing but light. All of them stood next to each other. Off in the distance, away from the group that had just arrived, two figures stood facing away from them. Each one held the others hand, and with their other hand reached out to something only they could see off in the distance.

'We cannot go to them, we must pull them to us...' A quiet voice sounded from behind them, or rather it sounded in their heads to be coming from behind, whispering to all of them.

'call out and hope...'

Try they did once, but they found their voices somehow silenced by the white void around them. Now instead of a voice whispering words to them, it whispered something far simpler yet far more complex. It told them how to call out to them.

Again they tried, this time pulling from their emotions to call out to them. For a moment their collective voices rose to audible whisper before falling sillent again.

For the final time, the voice whispered to them. Whispered of how they must use their strongest emotion, the one that defined them the most.

One final time, they called out to them. Everyone seemed to use a different emotion. Amethyst shouted out as hard as she could, letting all her pain and insecurities come to the surface, letting tears fall that she'd held in for a very long time. Peridot let out her frustrations about everything around her. Stevonnie's call was that of concern, one friend wanting with all their being to help those in need.

Pearl's call was rather sad; a mix of loneliness, and the pain she had felt for everyone she had ever lost, in this life or all her lives before. Garnet's call was loving bordering on motherly. Almost as if a mother was calling her child to come inside. Last of all was Jewel, she simply squealed with the joy only a child can know.

It was that final straw that pulled the duo's attention from whatever had had it. Turning to look at all their friends, their family looking back at them. They saw all the emotions that they all had pulled out of the darkest parts of themselves. A sad smile crossed both their faces as Lapis turned back. Last did too, but not before his voice sounded in their heads.

'Not yet, we still have to help them. Care to help us?'

As Last turned to look away from them there was an almost tangable energy that tied the duo to them.

'Help us, we lack the strength to do this alone.'

Pulling at their link, together they felt just how massive a weight they were all trying to pull towards them. An eternity must have past before they first felt the weight shift. An infintismal change, but after pulling for so long it was definetly noticed. As that weight fell away, it seemed to add itself to their strenght.

Several more eternities past and they grew all the stronger. With each piece they chipped from this unseen mountain, the less time it took to chip the next off. It might have been another etenity or an eternity of etenities, but they were close to the end of their struggle. They had grow immensely strong through the ages, save for Pearl and Garnet who passed their share of the power to the others.

The last few shards came free and Last and Lapis turned towards them. It was surreal, the look of relief on their faces showed they were finally at ease. The energy that tied them together had changed. Without anymore weight to stop them from doing what they had been pulled here to do they set to work on something new.

Slowly the duo found themselves being pulled towards everyone else. Soon they came close enough to touch. They all embraced as they faded back into the white.


	21. Live Die Repeat

For the first time... For the first time in a long time I, no, we feel the need to breath. But our mind is still dust from the wieght and the pain of all of them. Our body reduced to ash. Oh but what is this? We can still see the sun begining to rise on the horizon in slow motion.

Scars heal... Pain passes... Smoke burns we rise from the ashes...

There it is, we can feel it. Just the slightest shift in the ash that made us up. We're coming back.

Darkness fades away...

The sun greets our eyes, it seems so much like the first sunrise...

And the light shines on a brand new day.

Ash turns back to flesh, our body building itself anew.

It took so long to learn this lesson, to live we must all die eventually, and to die you must first live. We're the failure of the cycle of life, we live even when we should not. Death never claimed us, it let us live. But while we've lived so long, we've felt dead for the longest time.

Now, now we can live again. We're ready to do it. Our first breath we took in together, all of us. Opening our eyes, we saw the ruins of a mansion around us and the many people that layed still holding onto us. They we only still for a moment before something almost inperceivable sank into them and they too took a breath.

We stood, we could do that now, we were ready to. Now we could see the old elf that lay a ways away from us. His eyes had been burned out, but we knew something far worse should have happened to him. Then we saw the last tinges of the blue liquid soak into his body. We remembered that substance, it floated through the Void, it was the Stone of Gelel. Breathing live and almost endless power into anything it touched. It had touched us. Maybe it had helped us rebuild after we fell apart and turned to ash.

We shook our head, we had wandered from the issue at hand. We remembered this elf, he was a friend we owed much to. Kneeling down to him, we reached out our hand and a wisp of lifes essense came from our fingers. We put our hand over his eyes, his body gave a jolt as he to took a breath. Pulling our hand away, we saw that his eyes had healed.

We heard the call that came from behind us. Then one of them jumped onto our back, landing between all of our many wings, for a moment we were surprised. Then we remember her as well, we knew why she was crying and holding onto us so tightly.

Stevonnie had missed us, they all had.

Looking at the elf again, we saw the surprise cross his face. The smile that came after was one we knew we had missed.

The others pilled onto us, we were hugged to the ground. A rather pleasent way to fall to the earth.

Now we knew many things that we all had learned. We purged the corruption that had settled deep into many of us. We were at peace. We can live, all of us. We, however, know they need their friends back. We will not rob from others to satisfy our own desires. So this godly state must break apart and become two once more. Have no fear, we will not cease, we will simply live both together and seperate. We still exist, just divided among our two saviors.

The glow that will split us grows to engulf us, now we are...

(Finally got control of the story again. Man, that fusion was too strong. It thoughts alone took over the story. Now it's 'gone'.)

Everyone pulled themselves away as the fusion split into its component parts. Last and Lapis lay on the ground where it had been a moment before. Holding each other by the hand, they smiled.

"Look how many we saved..." Last began.

"Look how many we brought some peace after so much pain..." Lapis finished.

Together, they held out their hands to the sky. Endless ghostly figures appeared above them.

Six Quadrillion gems filled the sky. No longer in pain, no longer shattered, they could all think. All of them together, gems and eternal beings, they were the strongest being in creation.

Sitting up to look to the horizon, the figures faded, our ancient friends walked out of the destroyed mansion, sat down own the front lawn, and watched the sun rise. Feeling content for the first time in an eternity.

"Doesn't this sunrise..." Lapis started to ask.

"Remind you of the first?" Last responded.

Lapis nodded with a worry free smile.

The effect they had on the world around them was evident. The ashes that the mansion was but a moment ago became once again a grand mansion.

'Looks like he rebuilt my mansion, again. Wonder if he gave me a fourth floor for killing me, again.' Alfie privately thought to himself. Everyone else had poured outside to watch the sunrise with their friends. The trees stood tall with every branch and leaf reaching up to the sky. Nature itself seemed to celebrate this moment of happiness.

"Topaz..." Last said simply and then she was there on his lap. "Look at the pretty sunrise." He pointed off towards the sunrise to show her where to gaze and her eyes widened.

Looking over at the sunrise that filled the sky with so many beautiful colors, all she could do was gaze upon it in all its splendor. Pearl sat down next to the three of them, putting Jewel on her lap so she could watch the sunrise right next to Topaz.

"Think today's gonna be..." Pearl started.

"Normal? Peaceful? Happy?" Last continued.

"Why not all of the above?" Lapis finished.

"That sounds good to me." Stevonnie said as she glowed and she to became her two component parts again.

"It's a good day today." Steven said smiling.

Connie held his hand and replied. "Without a doubt."

On the roof of the house, many others sat quietly enjoying the sunrise.

"Just this once." The woman that had snuck out of the mansion earlier stated.

"We all get to have a good day." Another finished.

Turning his back to the sunrise, one of them stood and walked away, fading away into nothing. Then the others joined in, one by one leaving Alfheim, by some unknown means.

Out of the forest. there was a rustle, and then Lion walked slowly from the brush. Without so much as a sound, Lion walked in front of everyone and layed down to bask in the morning sun.

"You like this world to... don't you Pinkie?" Last asked with a sly smile.

Lion stopped basking for a moment and looked at Last, to which he returned an expression that seemed to hint that he knew something.

"Perhaps it's best to leave this for another time..." Last picked up Topaz up off his lap and pulled himself to his feet. Putting Topaz on Lion's back, Last started talking to his adopted daughter.

"Alright Topaz, wanna ride around on the fluffy Lion?"

Topaz responded with a gleeful clap of her hands and a cry of giddy. Last knelt down to look Lion in the eyes.

"Alright Pinkie, take care of my little girl, and..."

Last whispered something into Lion's ear for a very long moment before Lion's eyes flashed bright white then returned to normal.

"Care to take her on a nice trip back to Steven's house?"

Lion gave a look of almost shock then darted off down the road with Topaz holding tight to its mane.

"What did you say to Lion? And why did you let her ride on it?" Lapis asked.

"Because that lion isn't really a lion..."

Lapis took notice of his words.

"That still doesn't..." Lapis was cut off by Last closing the gap between them, moving to put his forehead to hers, he passed some valuable piece of information between himself and Lapis.

Her eyes opened wide with surprise.

"Well..." Lapis was quiet for a moment, thinking over this new information. "Alright then."


	22. He Never Existed, There is no Last

Stevonnie came to consciousness on the bed in the beach house, an alarm clock blared next to her. Wanting another five minutes to sleep she slowly reached over and put her hand all over the nightstand trying, then finding, the snooze button and slamming it down.

'Come on Steven...' Connie's voice echoes inside Stevonnie's mind.

'Time for...school.' Connie's voice seemed to stutter for a moment as something drifted across Stevonnie's collective mind. She bolted up in her bed and threw the covers off.

"Wait, how did we/I get home?" Stevonnie tried to remember how she had come to wake up on her bed. Her thoughts were interupted by someone walking in the door.

"Hey Last, do you know how we got..." Stevonnie stopped when she realized that it wasn't Last that had walked through the door, it was Jamie with a large bundle of mail.

"Up late again?" Jamie put the mail down on the coffee table in front of the couch.

"I don't really know, can't remember."

"You probably fell asleep waiting for the gems again." Jamie didn't seem to be at all concerned by her statement.

As Jamie finished that statement the warp pad activated.

"Looks like their back." Jamie said with a smile.

Pearl, Garnet, and Amethyst stepped off the warp pad. Jamie walked up to Garnet with no hesitation.

"Have a good mission?" Jamie asked politely.

"It was alright, I'd rather have been here with you." Garnet responded with a smile.

Jamie offered a hand to her.

"Then shall I take such a fine madam out for a fine morning on the town?"

Garnet noded.

"Most definitely."

The pair walked out the front door, arm in arm.

When the door shut Stevonnie was left with a shocked expression.

"What's got you all shocked?" Amethst asked as she walked over and plopped down on the bed.

"Jamie...and Garnet...together?" Stevonnie gasped out unable to understand what she had just seen.

"Ya Stev, over a year now, but you know that." Amethyst tilted her head as she looked at Stevonnie.

"What's wrong Stev? You seem different today."

Stevonnie put a hand to her forehead and tried to focus.

"It's weird, I know I woke up here, but I can't remember how we got home last night."

Amethyst and Pearl look over at her with a concerned expression.

"We weren't here last night Stev, we've been on a mission for three days."

Stevonnie's eyes widened in shock.

"WHAT!?" Stevonnie exclaimed. "We were just in Alfheim, you guys were there, and so were Last and Jewel!"

There was a long moment of silence as Amethyst's expression grew very alarmed and she turned to look at Pearl. Her expression was one of shock, then it became one of anger. Pulling a spear from her gem she walked towards Stevonnie.

"Who are you?" Pearl let out a tear as she yelled at Stevonnie.

"Hold up Pear..." Amethyst was cut short by Pearl knocking Amethyst across the room with the blunt end of her spear.

"I haven't talked about Jewel in over a century..." Pearl made it to the bed at that point.

"And I have never been to any place called 'Alfheim'." Pearl put the tip of her spear to Stevonnie's neck.

"Now tell me..." Pearl drives the spear just far enough into her skin to draw blood.

"Who are yo..." Pearl is now cut off by Amethyst tackling her onto the bed and the spear falling away from Stevonnie's neck.

"RUN!" Amethyst shouted.

Stevonnie was quick to get out from under her covers and run for the door. She managed to open the door, but was stopped when she felt the spear go through her heart. Coughing up a little blood she fell to her knees, then flat onto the ground. The world began to blur, Stevonnie knew something was wrong, she should have poofed by now.

"No... I don't wanna...die..."

A moment later Stevonnie passed...

Waking to the sound of an alarm clock, Stevonnie reached out and patted her hand across her nightstand until she found and pushed the 'snooze' button on it.

'Come on Steven...time for...school...'

Stevonnie bolted upward in bed panicking reaching for where the spear had protruded from her body only to find smooth skin. Another moment later Jamie walked in the front door.

"Hey Stevonnie..." Jamie stopped talking when he saw Stevonnie's demeanor.

"Hey, are you alright?" Jamie asked concerned.

"Spear, in my chest..." Stevonnie said in a mild state of shock.

"Wow! Must have been a nightmare." Jamie exclaimed.

The warp pad activated and the crystal gems arrived at the beach house.

"Well hello Mil'lady." Jamie said happily, forgetting Stevonnie's panic for a moment while he walked over to Garnet.

"Care for a fine morning on the town?" Jamie asked.

Garnet smiled at the request and over out a hand to him which he took readily.

"Most definitly."

Garnet and Jamie walked out the front door arm in arm.

"Hey Stev what's got you so freaked out?" Amethyst asked as she walked over and plopped down on Stevonnie's bed.

Stevonnie looked down at where the spear had been.

"Nothing, just a bad dream."

"Okay." Amethyst said as she got up and walked over to the kitchen to start making food.

"Want some breakfast? I'm making it!" Amethyst said while she pulled various foods out of the cupboards.

"Sure..." Stevonnie paused for a moment looking over to see the Temple door closing to Pearl's room.

"Amethyst, where are Lapis and Last?" Stevonnie asked.

"Well..." Amethyst thinks for a second while she balances a large amount of food in a stack on a piece of bread.

"Lapis is at the barn with Peridot, but I have no idea who Last is."

"What do you mean 'you don't know who Last is?'" Stevonnie asked.

"Just what I said." Amethyst puts another slice of bread on top of the pile of food. "No idea who that is, friend of yours?" Amethyst took a massive bite of her sandwich as she looked over at Stevonnie.

"Ya, he's been with the gems for, what? Three years now?" Stevonnie at that point had no idea what was happening.

Amethyst just looks over at her confused.

"Ya, no, I would know if someone with a name like 'Last' was with us for three years." Amethyst took another bite of her sandwich.

Stevonnie threw away the sheets and got up from her bed.

"I'm gonna go see Lapis..." She said as she opened the door.

"Alright, see you later." Amethyst finished her sandwich after that.

Stevonnie jumped over the railing and bypassed the stairs altogether landing perfectly on the sandy beach.

'Alright, still have our battle training reflexes.'

Stevonnie took off towards the barn, making it in record time.

"Lapis!" Stevonnie shouted when she made it there, taking a moment to catch her breath after the run.

"Steven?.." Lapis came slowly out of the barn, seeming almost as if her mind was entirely elsewhere.

"Come on Lapis, what's wrong with you today?" Peridot followed quite closely.

"The second you woke up from that nap you started acting like this."

"Steven... have you seen..." Lapis seemed almost completely caught up in some form of turmoil in her own mind.

"It's feels like it's there but I can't reach it!" Lapis seemed to become coherent for a moment as she sat down and tucked her knees to her chest while she covered her ears.

"Lapis, are you okay? Maybe Last can..." Stevonnie was cut short by Lapis.

"Last!" Lapis' fingers curled into tight fists as she fell forward, her knees hit the ground and so did her fists. The earth beneath shook when they hit.

"I can still feel him you bastards!" Lapis growled out.

The faintest image of many wings graced her back before promptly fading out as Lapis picked herself up and looked at Stevonnie with blood trickling from one nostril.

"Stevonnie! They're trying to..." Lapis' voice ceased when the alarm clock began to blare in Stevonnie's ear and the darness of the inside of her eyelids greeted her.

Stevonnie sat up, ignoring the alarm clock, having a look of shock and horror on her face.

"Hey Stevo*Oof*" Jamie was knocked aside as Stevonnie pushed past him and again jumped the railing to simply land on the beach.

She hit the ground, tumpled, and keep on running. Making it to the barn, she shouted for Lapis again, but Lapis did not come to her call.

"What's going on down there!" Peridot shouted from the loft. "Who's making this much noise while I'm sleeping!"

Stevonnie ran forward and jumped up to Peridot in a single bound.

"Peridot where's Lapis?!" Stevonnie reached out and grabbed Peridot by the shoulders.

"Let go of me you clod, who do you think you are barging in here and waking me up to ask me about some clod I don't know!"

Stevonnie released Peridot and backed away slowly in shock.

"No..." Taking another step back, Stevonnie's foot hits nothing but air and she is sent falling backwards.

Grabbing hold of the edge of the platform, Stevonnie saves herself from immediate harm and drops down safely. Running out of the barn, Stevonnie rushes back towards the Temple. Hoping that she can find some shred of proof that either Last or Lapis are still around.

"I don't know where they went Pearl!" Amethyst exclaimed to Pearl. "I know about as much as you do right now."

The Temple door behind them opened itself as the front door burst open and Stevonnie ran towards it. Ignoring the shouts and dodging the attempts to hold her, Stevonnie slide inside and sealed the door behind her the moment she made it through.

Taking a moment to breath heavily, Stevonnie let out many sobbing tears. She took a moment to try and gather herself, even if a heaping helping of her world had fallen apart around her. Two of her dearest friends had seemingly up and vanished, and to top it off, they seemed to have vanished from the memory of everyone around her.

Then, another realization struck Stevonnie. Everything she felt about Last, all of the emotions that swelled inside her when she thought of him, were infintismal when she compared them to how she felt about Lapis.

Lapis, the gem she had saved from an eternity trapped inside a mirror, the gem she had become the closest to, was now gone, and only she remembered her. Last may have been her friend, but he had been asleep for two years, there wasn't much that she had done with him. She'd never developed a strong bond with him as she had with Lapis.

"Open the door to her room." Stevonnie said with her head hanging down, still trying to catch her breath.

For a long moment there was silence. The door to Lapis' room opened without noise in front of Stevonnie.

"It still exists..." Stevonnie said in an almost shocked tone.

Walking through the door, Stevonnie found herself in the middle of a packed room. From floor to ceiling with the books she had taken from around Last while he was asleep. Looking through the books, Stevonnie immediately bluched brightly and put the book back.

"No wonder she put these books out of the...Oof!" Stevonnie fell back as the pile collapsed and various books and boxs toppled to the ground.

Out of one of these boxes fell a small remote with a single button on it.

"Wait, what would Lapis need with this? What even is this?"

Examining it closely, it appeared to be a fairly normal remote control button. Seeing no point in delaying to try it, Stevonnie pressed the button.

The room vanished from around her, the universe seemed to, for a moment, be reordered by the power of this small remote.

Appearing in the middle of somewhere dark, Stevonnie stood, both ethereal and invisible. The darkness lifted momentarily as Stevonnie saw her two friends, bound and floating in some form of energy bubble.

"GUYS!" Stevonnie shouted but her voice made no sound across this room.

Even so, both picked up their heads for a moment in their individual prisons and looked directly at Stevonnie. Even without words or thoughts passing between them, a message was carried on their expressions.

**'Run****' **

A moment passed and a far off sound was heard. A door opened in the wall and Yellow Diamond stepped through with Blue Diamond following close behind.

"What is so important that you had to delay my trip to the Earth colony?" Blue Diamond asked in a dreary and overall depressed manner.

"We've captured those responsible for the 'incident'."

Yellow Diamond waved her hand and several more rows of prisons became illuminated.

"Two are not yet captured, but we have designed a system to track them and then transport them here, removing all references to them from memory of those that have encountered them, and adjusting memory accordingly. Our technological prowess has been devoted to designing these containment units for the last century. Every form of movement and communication, arcane or otherwise, accounted for and protected against."

"You realize I know all this? What's the reason you brought me here this time."

"They've managed to overshadow one gem, the only thing it said was, 'I will talk only to Blue Diamond...', the rest of what was said was irrelevent."

Blue Diamond turned to look at all the captured beings.

"Who here wanted to talk?"

In response, Lapis performed the closest equivalent she could to gesturing.

"Of course..." Yellow Diamond stated. "The one that hid among us."

Blue Diamond walked to Lapis and drew very close to her, with each step closer Blue Diamond seemed to grow smaller, or maybe Lapis and her prison grew. Lapis looked at Blue Diamond dead in the eyes.

"What is it you wished to..." Blue Diamond was silenced as the energy barrier faltered momentarily, all of Lapis' family that was present lended what power they could to do so.

Drawn in towards Lapis, Blue Diamond tried to pull back, but the time for escape had passed. Face to face with Blue Diamond, Lapis placed her forehead to Blue Diamond's, passing some form of message to the Diamond. Pulling away for a moment, Lapis let Blue Diamond take in the information, then closed the gap yet again to 'pull' Blue Diamond into a soft kiss before pushing her back out of the way before the collective power of her family gave out and the barrier reinstated itself.

Darkness once again consumed Stevonnie, the remote faded away as though it was being forgotten by the universe and thus ceasing to exist. Stevonnie woke up in the same pile of filthy books and boxes she had fallen under. Managing her way out, she walked slowly back to the door. Reaching the door she took one last look back at the room behind her before walking out. There was a fire in her eyes, a spark of determination had ignited.

"I'm gonna get them back..."


End file.
